The Dark Knights
by EndlessxDisaster
Summary: Rose Hathaway's life is hanging by a thread, a mission is waiting for her at Court and the moroi society is expectantly waiting for the arrival of the Dark One. A new threat has everyone cowering in fear with no one knowing who or what they are and Rose is the only one who can help them. Will she be able to pull through or has her life come to an end? Sequel to The Dark One.
1. She's Awake

**AN: Hello Lovelies! I'm back and I'm so excited to get back into writing again. I have every intention of making this sequel the best that I can. This story has been planned out and I have a lot in store for all of you. Thank you to every single one of you for all your support for my first story and I hope you continue to support me throughout this sequel. Thank you to all the people who sent me PM's about what they wanted to see in this story and I will do what I can to include it in here as much as possible. Anyway, let's get on with the first chapter. Enjoy!**

 **DPOV**

A week. That's how long Rose has been unresponsive, lying in a bed and not moving an inch. If it weren't for the slight rising and falling of her chest I would have thought she was dead. I hadn't left her side afraid of not being here when she woke up. I wanted to be here when she did. We had tried everything we could but not even Vasilisa could heal her, she said that something was blocking her and her healing didn't work on Rose.

Being a Draugr should mean that she could heal fast but even that was taking much longer than usual. Her wound was still bleeding, her heartbeat was faint and her body was cold. I tightened my grip on her cold hand and rested my head on the edge of the bed feeling my eyelids becoming heavy.

I couldn't remember the last time I had slept but with the woman I love on the edge of death, there was no way I was going to be at peace enough to sleep. Instead my mind drifted back to a week ago when I had arrived at New Orleans.

 **Flashback**

 _We had managed to trace her phone to W New Orleans hotel and that was exactly where I and two other guardians were heading. Kirova had assigned Guardian Jean and Guardian Knowles, although I didn't know them well, I did know that they were dedicated to their jobs, as most guardians are. Knowles and I remained near the elevator as Jean walked over to reception to ask if they had seen Avery._

 _They exchanged a few words and I scanned the area not that there would be any danger during the daytime for humans. I was surprised to learn that Avery had come here, which also happened to be where Rose was as well. A part of me thought that it wasn't a coincidence considering they were friends. The question was why Avery had chosen to come here. Guardian Jean returned to us._

" _The receptionist said that she came by here a few moments ago, she asked for the number of the room Rose Hathaway is staying at."_

 _My heart skipped a beat and I straightened up at the sound of her name. She was here. I would see her again._

" _What's the room number?" I asked._

" _576."_

 _We stepped into the elevator and made our way up to the floor. As we walked closer and closer to her room I became even more excited and was waiting in anticipation to hold her in my arms again. Being away from Rose was too much to handle and knowing that I was about to see her any second made me quicken my steps._

 _When we reached her room, the door was slightly ajar and there were frantic voices, I could even hear someone crying. I signalled to the other two behind me to be prepared and simultaneously we all withdrew our stakes. I pushed the door open and saw Abe, Pavel and a human who I assumed was Sydney hovering over something. Pavel was the first to notice us and he looked up with a grim expression._

 _He shifted slightly to reveal what they were fussing over and not a single part of me was prepared for the sight I was about to witness. On the ground was Roza lying on her back, her eyes were closed but that wasn't what shocked me. It was the obvious stake that was in her chest and judging by the looks on the three people by her side, I knew that this was bad. Within a second, I was kneeling by her side and desperately looked around at each of them._

" _What happened?" I demanded._

 _Sydney's lip was quivering and she let out a whimper while Abe stared at Roza's body. Their lack of doing anything to help her was frustrating me. All I had to do was pull the stake out, then she would heal and that's exactly what I did. I removed the stake and dropped it as I moved her body so that her back was leaning against my chest. My eyes burned into the wound and I waited and waited and waited. Nothing was happening._

" _Why isn't she healing?"_

 _They looked just as confused as I felt. "She should be healing. Why hasn't the bleeding stopped?"_

" _I don't know," murmured Abe. "This has never happened before."_

 _Pavel kneeled next to me and placed a towel on her wound to stop the bleeding. "We should take her to a hospital."_

" _We can't," said Sydney. "There will be too many questions that we don't have answers to."_

" _Will someone just tell me what happened?" I snapped._

 _Sydney flinched but answered me. "Avery staked her. She's a spirit user. Adrian sensed her power from our room and Rose had called him while Avery was with her so we came here to see what was going on and we saw Rose like this. Avery was sitting next to her but when she saw us she started fighting Adrian with spirit. We had to restrain her and get her away from Rose. Adrian's with her right now but Rose still hasn't woken up."_

" _She always wakes up," whispered Pavel._

" _What do we do?" I asked desperately. "There has to be something we can do to help her. She's still alive."_

" _That's impossible," spoke Jean. "I'm sorry but she's dead, there's nothing we can do for her."_

 _I had forgotten that Knowles and Jean were in the room with us. They were both puzzled and clearly didn't know how to handle this situation. I couldn't worry about them; right now all I could think about was finding a way to help Roza._

" _We have to do something. Anything."_

" _All we can do right now is wait," said Abe. "She'll wake up. She has to."_

 _He sounded like he didn't even believe his own words. I knew that no one in that room believed him. He did have a point though. There was nothing we could do except wait and that's what we did. We waited._

 **End of Flashback**

Every single day that went by of her remaining in her coma was making it even harder and harder for me to keep my sanity. I don't know what I would do if I lost her and I didn't even want to think about it. A life without Rose was not something I was willing to deal with. I felt a hand on my shoulder and looking up, I saw Adrian. He looked worse than I did and I pitied him.

Not only was his best friend on the brink of death but his great aunt was also murdered. When we came back from New Orleans, we had flown straight to Court and Adrian managed to get Roza a private room away from any prying eyes. He was also the one who compelled Jean and Knowles to forget that they had seen Rose lying dead on the floor.

"I figured you would want something to keep you awake," he said as he handed me a coffee.

"Thanks. How are you holding up?" I asked as he pulled up a chair.

"As you would expect."

It was obvious he hadn't been sleeping in a while judging by the tired look in his eyes. His hair was messy, not in the way it was usually styled and he was wearing the same clothes from yesterday.

"Abe and Sydney?" I asked, taking a sip of my coffee.

He sighed heavily and leaned back in this chair. "They're both sorting everything out about Avery. Abe's trying to send her away to Tarasov as discreetly as possible. He has a few connections in that place so it shouldn't be too hard. The further away she is from Rose, the better."

"I still can't believe she would do something like this."

"She was going crazy. Avery thought she was helping Rose be free from the darkness and the only way to do so was to kill her."

I flinched at his words. The idea that someone had planned a way to kill her made my blood boil and my heart sink at the same time. Even though I knew that Avery wasn't in her right mind, I was furious with her. I kept my eyes on Rose as I continued to speak with Adrian and he filled me in on what was happening outside of this room.

"Eddie, Lissa and Christian are still worried about Rose. Lissa has been dragged into the world of moroi politics ever since my aunt was murdered and Christian has been by her side, same with Eddie."

After graduation, Eddie had been assigned to Christian and the three of them had settled into Court. Rose would have been happy to hear that they were all here together. They had come in to see her while I refused to leave her side. Lissa and Christian were surprised to see me being so insistent on staying with her that they figured out that our relationship was beyond professional.

Thankfully they didn't say anything when they realised but I'm sure that Eddie was the one who offered them answers. Guardian Hans was also becoming difficult to handle since he was waiting for The Dark One, in fact everyone here was. They were expecting to be saved from whoever had murdered the Queen but there was nothing we could do. It wasn't like we could tell him that The Dark One was in a coma and we weren't sure if she would even make it.

"Everyone's losing their minds out there," said Adrian. "They would feel safe if they knew who was behind it but not knowing is causing everyone to panic."

"The Queen was murdered. We could all be in danger," I replied bluntly.

Adrian didn't seem to be affected by my words and instead looked like he was going to pass out any second. I left him alone and lifted Roza's hand to my lips, kissing it softly.

"Please wake up," I murmured in Russian.

* * *

 **RPOV**

I may be a badass but I certainly didn't look like one right now. There was nothing around me, just shadows that I couldn't see past. I was huddled on the ground beneath me with my legs pulled up against my chest. Wherever I was, it was silent, not a single sound could be heard except for my uneven breathing. I had been running around trying to find a way out of here but it was like the shadows followed me and eventually I had given up knowing that it was pointless.

I had even tried screaming hoping that someone would get me out of here. Wherever here was. I remembered everything though. I remembered Avery's rambling and calling Adrian to come help me. I remembered the stake, the pain that followed and waking up alone in a place I wasn't familiar with. Thankfully, my chest didn't hurt and the wound wasn't there anymore but I could clearly remember how painful it had felt.

Whenever I had been "killed" I woke up within a few minutes but I had never been stuck in a place like this before. I didn't know how long I had been here and I wondered if the others had found me yet or knew that I was gone. I would hope so. With a sigh, I rested my head on my knees and closed my eyes.

"Rosemarie?"

My head shot up and my breath caught in my throat. I opened my mouth as tears formed in my eyes but nothing came out. Slowly, I struggled to stand up and my breathing became ragged.

"Mum?" I whispered.

Standing a few feet away from me stood Janine Hathway, my mother. She looked the same as I remembered. Her red curly hair stood out amongst the black shadows surrounding us and there was a smile playing on her lips. She lifted her arms and held them out to me and I didn't hesitate to run into them. I threw my arms around her neck and couldn't hold back the sob that was building up in me. I had dreamed about holding my mother ever since she had died and it almost scared me how real she felt.

"Oh my god, is this real?"

She smoothed my hair down with one hand while the other rested on my back. "Of course it is."

"I can feel you," I mumbled into her shoulder. "How can I feel you?"

"You're stuck in the world between the living and the dead. I'm here to help you get back to yourself in the real world Rose."

I pulled back slightly but kept my arms around her, not wanting to let go of her. "What like limbo? How are you here then?"

"That doesn't matter. What matters is that you need to fight. You have to return to your body."

"I don't know how to do that? Wait am I dead?"

She stroked my cheek. "No you're not but if you don't return you'll be stuck here. People need you Rose. People need the Dark One and since you're the last in the Draugr bloodline you have to get back."

"How?" I asked, my voice small. I couldn't stop staring at her. How she looked now was completely different to when I found her body. If this was going to be the last time I see her, I was thankful that it would be this moment rather than seeing her dead.

"Clear your mind and focus on every sensation that you feel in your body. These shadows that are surrounding us right now is what's keeping you from returning. They're still here because you're letting them keep you here but you need to fight through it. I know you can do it Rosemarie. You're the strongest person I know."

Tears were forming in her eyes and I struggled to keep it together. We were both getting emotional.

"I don't want to leave you," I said, clinging onto her.

She pulled me against her. "You have to. It would be selfish of me to keep you here with me even though I want to. I know you can do it. No matter where you are, I'm always watching over you. You are never alone."

We stayed like that for a little longer, holding onto each other and the sound of our crying breaking through the eerie silence. I didn't think I would ever get the chance to see her again but now that we were together, I was reluctant to let go. If only I could take her back with me. She pulled away and kissed my forehead as she cupped my face. Her eyes stared straight into mine.

"I'm proud of you. Don't ever doubt that and I want you to know that I will always be there with you. You have great things ahead of you so no matter how hard things might get, promise me that you will never give up."

"I promise." And I meant it.

"Fight Rose. You have to fight."

I nodded understanding that she was right. Even though I wanted to stay with her I had my life to return to and people that were probably worried. Abe, Dimitri, Adrian, Sydney, Eddie, Lissa and Christian. I not only had to fight for them, I had to fight for myself. Closing my eyes, I took in a deep breath and focused all my energy onto pushing through the wall that was blocking me from reality.

It kept pushing back and I pushed even harder. _Fight Rose._ I repeated my mother's words in my head and with everything I had, I broke down the wall and pushed my way through the darkness. When I opened my eyes, the shadows around us started to clear up and I could see light peaking through. My eyes went straight to my mother's and I held her hands in mine.

"I love you Rosemarie."

"I love you too mum."

She disappeared slowly and I was left alone with my hands in front of me where I had been holding her hands. Lowering them to my sides I saw the light wrap around me until it became blinding to the point where I had to shield my eyes. Out of nowhere, I felt something push me back forcefully and I opened my eyes, gasping for air. I was distantly aware of voices and I stared at the white ceiling above me. I had done it. I fought through the darkness.

"She's awake."

 **AN: Rose finally woke up? Do you think the spirit from the stake might have affected her? I hope you liked the first chapter, I know not a lot happened but we're only just getting started. The next chapter should be up in a few days so I won't wait too long to update. Thank you so much for reading! Much love xoxo Have a good day/night! :D ~ Savannah**


	2. You Can Call Me Rose

**AN: Hey hey! Thank you so much for all the favourites, follows, and reviews I love reading all of them. I'm super excited that you are all looking forward to what's to come :) Anyway let's get on with chapter two. Enjoy!**

 **RPOV**

My throat was dry, my head was throbbing and my skin was covered in a thin layer of sweat. As soon as I woke up, I had started crying and I didn't know why. Maybe it was because I was relieved to be back in my body or it was because I had seen my dead mother and I felt like I lost her again. It took me a little while to calm down and realise that I'm not dead.

Being staked wasn't something new to me but a stake that was charmed with spirit was a different case. I had no idea what it might have done to me. For now, I was grateful to be alive. Once that realisation kicked in, I turned to my right to see Dimitri watching me, his eyes full of emotion and I didn't hesitate to throw myself at him.

He caught me and wrapped me in his arms tightly, whispering in Russian. I never understood what he was saying but there was something soothing about listening to him talk in his native tongue.

"I thought I had lost you," he said, switching to English.

I tightened my arms around him and tangled my hand in his hair. "I didn't know if I was ever going to make it back."

He pulled away slightly so he could kiss me and I eagerly returned it. Soft and gentle was out the window in a matter of seconds. It had felt like months rather than a couple of weeks since I had kissed him and I was definitely not being gentle. He ran his tongue along my lip and I opened my mouth for him, moving closer to him to deepen the kiss.

I was about to pull him onto the bed with me when someone cleared their throat. Pulling away quickly, I turned to see Adrian with an amused expression on his face. He looked exhausted but happy to see me. I blushed and returned the smile, moving away from Dimitri so I could hug Adrian.

"Do not ever do this to me again little dhampir, you had all of us out of our minds. You have no idea how happy I am to have you back."

I patted his back lightly. "I'm glad to be alive."

He stepped out of my hug and my hand immediately found Dimitri's. We exchanged a smile and he reached out to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear.

"You were out for an entire week Rose," said Adrian, breaking my gaze from Dimitri. "That has never happened before."

My smile dropped. "I know but this time it was different. Avery used a stake that was charmed with spirit, we've never known how spirit could affect someone like me."

Adrian's expression changed and his eyes narrowed for a moment before widening. He was studying my aura.

"Whoa."

"What?"

He stepped closer and frowned. "The darkness from your aura is gone. There's no hint of any shadows."

It was my turn to frown. "What do you mean? You said that my aura was completely black."

"Yes but not anymore," he replied. "Rose your aura is silver. Only silver, it's hard to miss. I've never seen anything like this before."

"This is a good thing right?" asked Dimitri hesitantly. "It means you no longer have that darkness in you Roza, maybe the spirit took it away."

"Is that possible?" I asked Adrian.

He nodded slowly, not taking his eyes off me. "Yeah I guess but I can't say for sure. Like you said before, we've never studied how spirit could affect a Draugr because there hasn't been anything about it."

A thought crossed my mind and I began to feel uneasy. "If spirit took away my darkness, does that mean I'm no longer a Draugr?"

Heavy silence filled the room and they both avoided my eyes. Dimitri squeezed my hand and Adrian spoke up.

"Your aura is different from before but it's still different from any other moroi or dhampir so maybe the darkness was the only thing that was affected."

I relaxed slightly. There have been several times when I had complained about being a Draugr but that didn't mean I wanted to be something else. I liked being what I am. If everything was taken from me and I became normal then I wouldn't be who I am. I wouldn't be the Dark One. I would just be Rose.

Dimitri kissed my temple. "Don't worry Roza, we can test out all your abilities to make sure you still have them."

He continued to stroke my hair and I nodded in agreement. "Okay. Where are the others?"

"I'll go get them," said Adrian, standing up. He patted my hand before walking out of the room leaving me with Dimitri.

I pulled him to me and kissed him again. The others would be here in a few minutes so I knew we couldn't take it too far, the last thing I wanted was for Abe of all people to walk in on us. Dimitri moved so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his hand went to my back and he gripped my shirt in his hand.

Despite my headache, feeling the pressure of his lips on mine was enough to make me forget about it. I tugged on his lower lip with my teeth, eliciting a small growl from him causing me to smirk. I liked knowing that I had that kind of effect on him. He trailed kisses down to my neck and I closed my eyes letting out a sigh.

"I've missed you so much," he whispered.

I lifted his head to look into his eyes. "I'm here now and I'm not going anywhere."

He smiled at me a full smile and I couldn't resist the urge to kiss him. The sound of footsteps made me lean away from Dimitri and he moved back into his chair but didn't let go of my hand.

The door opened to reveal Abe, Sydney and Pavel walk in. I straightened up and welcomed the embrace from Abe. We rarely ever hugged, only during emotional times and this was way up high on the list of emotional moments we've gone through.

He kissed the top of my head. "Thank goodness you're okay. I don't know what I would have done if I had lost you too."

The thought of leaving my dad alone if I had actually died saddened me. He lost his wife, losing me would send him over the edge.

"It'll take more than a stake to kill me," I joked half-heartedly.

"Can I hug her now?"

I lifted my head to see Sydney and I smiled. "Come here."

Abe moved away allowing Sydney to rush to my side. She was happy that I had woken up and elbowed me lightly for scaring her. Pavel didn't make a move to hug me but instead nodded at me once, letting me know that he was just as relieved as everyone else to see that I was okay.

"Your wound healed," pointed out Sydney.

I glanced down and placed my hand over my chest to see that she was right. My shirt was stained with blood and it was torn where the stake had pierced through the material but there was no mark on my chest anymore.

"Well yeah, my wounds always heal," I replied, not understanding why she seemed surprised.

"This one took longer Rose. The entire week your wound was bleeding and it didn't heal like it usually would. We even had Lissa try to heal you but that didn't work," she explained.

"Oh. It doesn't matter though right? I still healed."

The fact that I healed quickly should mean that not all my abilities were gone. I healed as soon as I returned to my body that must mean that I'm still a Draugr. Hopefully.

Abe cleared his throat. "No it doesn't matter. What matters is that you're okay and Avery has been taken care of."

I had actually forgotten about her, which was surprising considering I was in this condition because of her.

"About Avery, what's going to happen to her? You did catch her right?"

"Of course," answered Dimitri. "We brought her back to Court with us and kept the story of you being staked by her a secret. People would know something is wrong to find out that you survived."

Abe took over. "She is on her way to Tarasov as we speak, she won't be a problem from now on. Avery will get help to deal with the side effects of spirit."

"That's good to know."

A part of me was pissed off with her but I also felt sorry for Avery. She wasn't in her right mind when she had staked me, in fact I recall her saying that she only wanted to help me. If she hadn't lost her mind, she would have made a really great friend. Being mad at her was something I wasn't willing to waste energy on unless I found out that I'm not a Draugr anymore. That would be something that I could never forgive her for.

"I know that Rose only just woke up and you need time to recover but what are we going to do about Guardian Croft?" questioned Pavel, speaking for the first time. "He's becoming impatient and we're running out of excuses."

"He can wait," snapped Abe.

I shook my head and threw the covers off me. "No I'm good, I can help. Just let me shower and eat something, then I can get on with the mission."

Dimitri pulled on my hand gently. "Roza, you need to take it easy. You were unconscious for an entire week and you almost died. Guardian Croft can wait one more day."

"No I can't just lie around and do nothing."

Abe, Adrian and Dimitri were ready to disagree with me when Sydney stepped in.

"Just let her help."

The three of them stared at her and she simply shrugged. "It's Rose, she's not going to listen if you're going to argue with her. She'll find a way to help either way."

I grinned and she gave me a timid smile in return. She knew me so well. They backed off, Abe being more hesitant than the others. I groaned as I stood on my feet, having to use muscles that I hadn't used in a week but Dimitri held my arm to keep me steady.

"I'm going to take a shower, can you get all the information I'm going to need?" I requested.

"I'll get everything organised," offered Abe.

"And I'll get you some clothes to change into," said Sydney.

The four of them left while Dimitri remained with me. "I'll wait for you here."

I kissed his lips lightly and went into the bathroom. When I glanced in the mirror, I looked like I had been to hell and back. I wasn't sure if the place I had gone to was hell but it was definitely close enough. Stripping my clothes off, I stepped into the shower and welcomed the hot water to loosen up my muscles. Even though I wanted to get back to Dimitri as quickly as possible, this shower felt too good.

The dried blood washed off me and it made me feel a little better to have any reminder of what happened disappear. I lightly ran my hands over the place where the stake had pierced into me and the fear of not being what I was anymore settled in. I decided to at least test my senses for now. I could feel the presence of someone on the other side of the door, knowing it was Dimitri and I could hear him shuffling around. My senses seemed to be working perfectly fine.

I turned the water off and stepped out, wrapping a towel around my body. As I pulled the shower curtain back I stared at the metal rod it was attached to. Only way to find out if I'm still strong. Reaching up, I gripped onto the rod and took a deep breath before tightening my hold on it. The metal bent in my hand and I let out a sigh of relief. A dhampir who was insanely strong could have possibly done it if they tried hard enough, but for me it was effortless. I'm still me.

I quickly dried myself off and went back into the room. The bed was made and Dimitri was standing by the window, looking outside. He turned to me when I approached him.

"Sydney dropped off some clothes."

Sure enough, they were neatly folded on the bed and I started getting dressed. I had just put my bra on when I felt Dimitri behind me and his arms went around my waist. He kissed my shoulder and buried his face in my hair.

"I have to get dressed," I teased.

"Hmm?" He lips trailed up and down my neck.

I laughed and spun around so that I was facing him. He was smiling slightly and I ran my fingers through his soft hair. I couldn't even begin to explain how good it felt to be back with him. He leaned down to kiss me but I stepped out of his arms and reached for my top. He shot me a playful glare and I winked at him.

"I did say I had to get dressed."

"After the time we've spent apart, you can't tease me like that," he replied trying to sound serious, but I could hear the laughter in his voice.

Shaking my head, I gave him a lingering kiss. "Better?"

"Almost," he said, pulling me to him.

We had to be on our way to meet Abe so he could fill me in on the mission and we left the room, taking longer than necessary. I had a bit of a skip in my step when he grabbed my hand as we walked down to guardian headquarters. I was sure that I wouldn't be hiding my identity with Guardian Croft and honestly I didn't care so much.

I had no idea who he was but Dimitri told me that he was a little similar to Alberta and he is someone we could trust. Besides, hiding my identity hadn't been working out as well as I had hoped. It's not like I was announcing it to everyone though, it was just Croft so it wouldn't be a big deal if he knew. When we walked closer to the building, we both dropped our hands knowing that we would have to remain professional.

It was night time for us so there weren't any people around except for a few guardians on patrol and the occasional moroi being escorted to their rooms by their personal guardians. No one paid any attention to us though.

"How bad is it?" I asked. "Have you seen the murder scene?"

He grimaced. "No, but Abe said it wasn't good. This is the Queen she should be the most safest person here but she was killed so easily without anyone noticing."

I shivered internally. I could only imagine how scared the people here were.

"We'll figure this out."

He glanced down at me, lifting an eyebrow. "We?"

"Of course, we're a team," I replied like it was so obvious.

Dimitri smiled at me fondly. "Yes we are."

We entered the building where Abe, Pavel and a guardian were standing. Their heads turned towards us as we walked through the door and came to a stand still in front of them. The guardian stepped forward and held his hand out to Dimitri.

"I'm Guardian Croft, you must be Guardian Belikov. Princess Dragomir's guardian right?"

Dimitri shook his hand. "Yes that would be me."

His eyes shifted to me and he held out his hand. "And who might you be?"

I took his hand and looked him straight in the eye, holding my head up high. "I'm the Dark One but you can call me Rose."

What I would have given to take a snapshot of the expression on his face when those words left my mouth. I couldn't help the smirk that formed on my lips. He almost looked like he was in shock and I had to be the one to remove my hand from his because all he was doing was staring at me.

I cleared my throat. "Why don't you show me to Queen Tatiana's room?"

He straightened up and nodded. "Of course, right this way."

We followed him out of the room and walked towards the Queen's chambers. I fell into step with him as the others followed behind us.

"I trust that you won't be telling anyone about me."

It was more of a warning than a request. I'm sure that I had made it obvious from the tone of my voice. He had understood.

"You have my word." He hesitated before speaking again. "I wasn't expecting someone so young. The stories I've heard about you…well I never expected it from a teenager."

"I'm not like other people my age," I stated firmly.

We didn't speak after that and arrived at Tatiana's room shortly. Croft stepped forward and rested his hand on the door handle, turning towards me.

"Brace yourself, this won't be pretty."

He pushed the door open and I walked past him into the room. The sight before me would make anyone sick to the stomach. I had seen a lot of horrible things in my life and this was just as bad. There was something bone chilling about what I was looking at though. This was worse than I had expected.

 **AN: Dimitri and Rose are going to be working together on this mission and I can't wait to start writing more about them teaming up. Plus Rose is still a Draugr, only her darkness was taken away. Do you think that's the only thing different about her? I would love to hear your thoughts. Moving on, chapter three should be up on Friday or Saturday so it won't be too long of a wait. Thank you so much for reading, much love xoxo Have a good day/night! :D ~ Savannah**


	3. Eternal Darkness

**AN: Hello Everybody! Thank you so much for all the reviews, favourites and follows. I am so lucky to have incredible readers who always support me. You are all amazing! By the way, I just realised that I totally forgot to post an author's note on my first story before posting the sequel to let you guys know that the sequel was up. Whoops, my bad :/ Thank you to Juveriah for your sweet review, I love you too xo Anyway, here's chapter three, enjoy! :D**

 **RPOV**

I was never a fan of Tatiana but this was something I never would have wished for her. All I could think about was how Adrian must have been feeling; I hoped he hadn't seen this. The first thing that had hit me was the god awful smell of decaying bodies. They had been killed about a week ago and nothing had been touched since their bodies were found. I wasn't just looking at one body though, there were six of them. Queen Tatiana, her four guardians and her best friend, Priscilla Voda.

"Only the Queen was murdered in the bedroom, the guardians and Priscilla Voda were killed outside but their bodies were dragged in here."

My eyes scanned over the entire room. "This had to be done by a group of people. One person could not have pulled this off."

"They would have to be strong and stealthy too," added Dimitri. "Taking down four trained guardians and killing these people without anyone knowing is something they must have planned out down to the last detail."

There was blood splattered on the walls, on the bed sheets and some smeared on the white carpet, specifically near where the guardians lay. Tatiana's body was sprawled out on her bed, Priscilla's was sitting upright against the side of the bed, three of the guardians were laying face down and the other one was propped up against the wall, his eyes wide and blank. I went to Tatiana first and studied her body looking for the way she had been killed. My eyes went straight to the silver stake sticking out from her chest.

"Have you taken any fingerprint samples from the stake?" I questioned, not taking my eyes off of her.

"Not yet, we've been waiting for you to arrive but we have people ready to collect any evidence as soon as you're done," explained Hans.

I moved onto Priscilla and unlike Tatiana, there weren't any obvious signs of her death on her. There were no marks, cuts or even bruises, just her body slouched against the bed with her lips parted and eyes wide open like she was still in fear. Tatiana may have been staked, which would be painful but it was her guardians that were beaten up the most.

The one propped up against the wall caught my eye as soon as I had walked in and I leaned in closer, my eyes running over his body. There was blood smeared on the wall behind his head where he had been shot. Guns weren't a common weapon that our people had and even though some guardians carried them, it was usually stakes that were used since strigoi were our enemy, not our own people. I was about to move away from his body when something on the side of his neck caught my eye. I turned his head slightly to get a better look and saw bright red welts.

"He has burn marks," I stated.

Dimitri came up behind me, peering at the wound. "Most likely a moroi fire-user."

There was a heavy pause and the air was filled with tension as soon as those words were spoken. The evidence was surrounding us but to know that there was a chance of rogue moroi being behind this was difficult to accept.

"A group of moroi couldn't have done this alone," I said, standing up. "Dhampir's could be helping."

"Moroi and dhampir's working together isn't unheard of," Abe spoke from outside of the room. "Especially if those dhampir's are the moroi's guardians but the question is why they would do this."

He had chosen to remain outside in the doorway with Pavel, occasionally glancing at the scene in the room and promptly looking away. Guardians were the ones who were usually use to seeing death, not moroi but even Dimitri, Pavel and Hans were unsettled. Don't get me wrong, I was far from being okay with this but my duty as the Dark One helped with not letting something tragic like this affect me. My heart did go out to the six of them though, the guardians who were killed put up a fight but they had lost.

I strode over to Hans. "Collect as much evidence as possible and have the results sent over to me as soon as you receive them."

He nodded. "I can have them for you in a couple of hours. We've also put the entire Court on lockdown, no one comes in or leaves."

"Good, I'm also going to need you to organise interviews with anyone that was close to the Queen. They might know something."

Hans went straight into making phone calls while I went to join Abe outside. Dimitri reached out and grabbed my wrist causing me to come to a halt.

"I'm going to stay here to help, make sure they're thorough and maybe find something else that could help us."

"I would stay but there are still other people that I need to go see, plus I'm starving."

A small smile played on his lips. "Of course, go ahead. I'll come see you once I'm done here."

He kissed me swiftly and I left the chambers with Abe and Pavel. He didn't say anything as we walked and I stole a glance at him to make sure he was okay.

"This is bad isn't it?" I asked quietly.

"Yes," he murmured. "If strigoi had done this then we would know what we're up against but that isn't the case here. Seeing what this group is capable of and not knowing who they are makes them even more dangerous."

"We need to find out who they are as soon as we can," I said.

"There is a chance that they may not be here anymore. No one knew what had happened until the next day giving whoever did this plenty of time to escape."

"I wouldn't be too sure," I disagreed. "They went to great lengths to do this and planned out how they were going to do it. These people would want to stay and watch everyone panic. That's what they want, they want to be feared, to cause fear and there is the possibility that they would do something like this again."

Abe nodded in understanding. "Then we need to not only find out who they are but why they're doing this as soon as possible. Hopefully there will be something useful from the evidence."

My stomach growled and I knew I couldn't put off food any longer. I had also wanted to see Eddie, Lissa and Christian but my hunger was a priority at the moment. Besides, it was moroi night meaning they would all be asleep right now. We headed towards a small café that was thankfully open and I ordered a breakfast sandwich and hot chocolate. It didn't take me long to practically the scoff the food down considering I had gone a week without food. When Abe had watched me demolish the food, he smirked and stood up to go buy me more leaving me with Pavel.

"It's nice to have you back Rose," he spoke for the first time.

"Thanks."

I had grown up with Pavel my entire life and even though he was a man of few words, he did show me that he cared for me and Abe from time to time. We didn't hang out with each other very often but I knew that if I were ever in danger, he would run to help me, as I would for him.

Shifting in my seat, I said, "I never really apologised for what happened in New Orleans. I'm really sorry that you had to see me do what I did to that guy."

"It wasn't your fault," he replied immediately. "And you no longer have to worry about the darkness anymore, Adrian told us that it's completely gone from your aura."

I shrugged, sceptical of whether that meant I had no more darkness to deal with. "It is a good thing, but we can't be sure. I know I still have my heightened senses and my strength yet there's this feeling that I can't shake. A feeling that maybe the spirit in the stake affected me more than I realise."

"We can test it out now if you want," he offered. "Well once you finish eating."

I agreed just as Abe returned with more food and that was gone within a few minutes. Once I was satisfied, Abe parted ways with us to join Dimitri and see how they were going with the investigation while Pavel and I went on our way to find a secluded area outside. I felt relaxed being outside in the sun and even though there was a cool breeze, it still felt nice. Being here did mean that I would once again, have to go back onto a moroi schedule.

"You said you still have your strength right?"

"Yep, I tested it out in the bathroom."

He gave me a weird look but I waved it off not bothering to explain. "Alright, I know that you said your senses still work but we should still try it out. Expand your senses and see how far you can go."

Obeying, I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths to clear my mind. The first thing I heard was the wind rustling in the trees and birds chirping although I'm sure that wasn't what Pavel would want me to listen out for. Instead, I continued searching for something else allowing my hearing and smell to take control.

"I can hear the heartbeats of multiple people in their rooms," I voiced. "They're all steady since they're sleeping but I can hear a few people talking, mostly at the bar."

"What are they talking about?" he asked.

I concentrated on their voices. "Two males, one is trying to get the other one to leave. He's saying that they have had enough to drink."

"Good. What else?"

"Food. I can smell it from the bakery on the opposite side of Court."

Opening my eyes, I met Pavel's gaze. "My senses are still working. I can even sense the guardians patrolling the borders."

He opened his mouth but I cut him off. "There's a total of eight guardians."

Pavel smiled a little and I knew he was impressed at how good I was. "Your speed."

I didn't need further coaxing. Without warning him, I sped off as fast as I could and did a lap along the borders breezing past anything and anyone. It felt freeing to run after being on bed rest for a week and because I didn't want to stop, I did a second lap before returning. It only took me a few seconds and I came to a sudden stop in front of him.

Letting out a short laugh, I felt happy that I was still me. If Adrian was right and all my darkness was gone, it meant that I was no longer a danger to myself. Pavel reached into his jacket and pulled out his stake with his other hand reaching out to me. I gave him my hand knowing exactly what he wanted to do.

"Don't hold back," I ordered.

He lowered the stake so the tip grazed the palm of my hand and then applied more pressure, dragging it across my skin. The cut opened and blood spilled out. It wasn't too deep but enough to see if my healing would kick in quicker than it would for a moroi or dhampir. Usually it healed a split second later but that didn't happen. Pavel pulled his stake away and we were both staring at the cut on my hand. It was healing but significantly slower than I expected.

"Why is it taking so long?" asking the question we were both thinking.

The wound was still taking its time to heal and it was almost agonising to watch. This was not good.

"Maybe your body is still healing," he suggested. "You've never been killed with spirit before so you could still be in the process of recovering."

"Maybe," I responded, feeling unconvinced. The cut was healed half-way but it was taking its sweet time and I could feel myself getting more and more annoyed.

Pavel gripped my shoulder. "Don't worry Rose. You're still healing faster than anyone else, you're still you. Your strength, speed and senses haven't been affected."

I looked up at him. "What about my immortality? Do you think that I lost that too?"

He didn't answer my questions. "Come on, you have blood all over your hand let's get you cleaned up."

We walked back inside and I stared at my palm the entire time watching as the cut finally closed. All that was left was a faint pink line where the stake had cut into my hand.

"At least it healed," I mumbled to myself. "Hey where am I staying? Do I have my own room?"

"Yes, it's quite close to Lissa and Christian's room actually. Eddie has his own room across from yours and Abe managed to get you a room that's big enough for you and Dimitri."

I almost tripped over. "Dimitri and I have a room together? And Abe is okay with it?"

He smirked at my reaction. "He had a talk with Dimitri, you know the whole 'you better treat my daughter well or else' but he seems to like him. I do too, he's a good guy."

"Yeah he is," I said wistfully. "Does Dimitri know that he's sharing a room with me?"

"He was the one to suggest it, after asking for Abe's permission."

"What about Sydney and Adrian?"

"They're a few rooms down. Sydney has to wear a charmed necklace to make sure her identity is hidden whenever she's in public. She wants to be here for Adrian but they don't know how long they can keep up with always having to use a charmed object before accidentally slipping up."

Adrian would have to use a lot of spirit to charm objects and making sure Sydney had one to use every single day would become a nuisance for them. An idea came to my mind and I knew exactly how I could help them. They would love it. We reached my room and it was just as nice as the one in New Orleans. It had the same theme of simple black and white and I felt happy that I would be sharing all of this with Dimitri.

Walking into the bathroom, I washed the blood off my hand and saw that there was no sign of the cut anymore. My injuries went from healing within seconds to minutes. I suppose it could be worse, all I wanted to know was why it was taking so long. After I finished cleaning up, I walked back into the living room to where Pavel was waiting for me.

"You know you can go get some rest. I'll be fine on my own," I said. He may be trained to be on alert at all times, but he could only go so long without sleeping.

Pavel headed towards the door. "If you need anything let me know. I'm just going to take a quick nap."

When he opened the door, Dimitri was standing on the other side with his hand prepared to turn the handle. He and Pavel exchanged a nod before he stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

"So I heard that you suggested that we share a room together," I said nonchalantly.

I swear I thought I saw him blush. "I figured you wouldn't mind but if you want your own room-"

My lips were on his before he could finish his sentence, taking him by surprise. I pulled away to look at him.

"I don't mind one bit, it'll give us a chance to spend time together and I like the idea of knowing that you'll always be here with me."

He smiled down at me and tilted my head up. "After not knowing when I would see you after you left, the last thing I want is to be away from you."

I leaned into him, and snuggled into his chest. "I'm not going to leave like that again. I know that there might be times when I'll have to travel for a mission but no matter what I'll always come back."

"Well, maybe…maybe I could come with you," he spoke softly.

Leaning back, I looked at him gazing down at me. "What about Lissa? You're her guardian."

He wrapped a strand of my hair around his finger. "I won't be her only guardian. She'll have someone else assigned to her and she'll be at Court. As long as she's here, Vasilisa will be safe and if she does leave for a trip or something, there will be plenty of guardians assigned to her since she's the last Dragomir."

Dimitri had a point. He was a phenomenal guardian and I could already picture the two of us kicking ass.

"We can discuss it later," he said, placing a finger under my chin so he could look at me. "We'll talk about it after we deal with this mission first."

He lowered his head and kissed me gently. I felt myself getting lost in the feel of his lips and I moved my hands down to the hem of his shirt when he stepped out of my arms.

"Hey, I was kissing you," I complained.

Dimitri looked like he wanted to continue but instead he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone, scrolling through it before handing it over to me.

"What is it?" I asked hesitantly, taking it from his hands.

"I took a picture of what was found in the Queen's hands."

Looking at the screen of the phone, I saw a picture of a small piece of black cloth with a red symbol on it. It was a symbol that I had never seen before.

"It was painted on with Tatiana's blood."

I glanced up at him. "What does it mean?"

"We don't know yet, that's what they're trying to figure out but there was some writing on it."

He fiddled with the phone again and then showed me another picture, this time it was the other side of the cloth with words written on it in a language I didn't understand.

"What does it say?"

"It's Romanian for Eternal Darkness."

 **AN: Hmm, wonder what the deal is with the black cloth with the symbol on it. There's also a particular character that I'm really excited about having in this story. Do you think you can guess who? I've been really eager to keep writing more chapters because I can't wait to get into writing more of the action scenes. Anyway, chapter four should hopefully be up on Monday or Tuesday, I'll try and aim for Monday though. Thank you so much for reading, much love xoxo Have a good day/night! :P ~ Savannah**


	4. He's in Pittsburgh

**AN: Hey everyone! Thank you so much for all your amazing reviews, you guys are so nice. Also, thanks for the favourites and follows :) I'm so sorry that this chapter is posted a day later than I had intended. I was having a hard time writing it since I just couldn't seem to focus properly. I won't be making a habit of it and hopefully writing the next chapter should be easier for me. Anyway, here's chapter four. Enjoy!**

 **RPOV**

Eternal Darkness. Those words were on repeat in my mind and I still couldn't figure out what that could possibly mean. Obviously it wasn't good but there was a deeper meaning to it that I didn't know yet. It must have been this group's signature, or their motto. Maybe even what they stand for, which made them sound even more dangerous if that were possible.

Thoughts of what it could mean was running through my mind and it was distracting me from paying attention to the conversation around me. Eddie, Lissa and Christian were in my room who had raced over as soon as they heard the news about me finally waking up. Seeing them again took my mind off of what I had seen earlier on and for a little while I was able to focus on just being Rose.

Of course, I was more excited to see Eddie since we were the closest and the look of relief on his face the second he saw me made me smile. He had swept me into a bone-crushing hug and I didn't mind one bit. Lissa and Christian's worry disappeared when I assured them that I was more than okay. For the past hour, I had updated them on everything that had happened to me. My mission in New Orleans, being staked by Avery and now my new mission here at Court.

Lissa was giving me an update on the royal council. "The royals are doing what they can to restore order but it's not working out as well as they hoped. So many people are scared and want to leave but no one can. The Court's in lockdown and I even heard rumours of royals bribing their way out of here."

"I'm not surprised," I said. "No one really is safe here."

Eddie straightened up at my comment and his eyes flickered over to Lissa and Christian. Maybe that wasn't the best thing to say around him. I knew that he was concerned about their safety and I tapped his hand lightly to let him know that he didn't have anything to worry about.

"Make sure you're never alone, we don't know who these people are but they are a threat to everyone here," I told them.

They nodded in understanding and I spared a glance at Eddie to make sure he knew that I was talking to him too. He was strong but not enough to take on an entire group of killers.

"So um, you and Guardian Belikov huh?" Christian questioned, changing the subject.

Dimitri had told me everyone in our inner circle knew about us and I was kind of glad that they found out on their own. If I had to be the one to tell them in the first place, I would have hated it and felt awkward.

"Yes, me and Dimitri are together," I confirmed.

Lissa smiled widely, showing off her fangs and clasped her hands together. "You two are perfect for each other and it was so obvious with how upset he was when you didn't wake up."

I internally winced and tried not to think about what I had put him or anyone else through. It was too much for me to handle because I knew that they genuinely thought that I would never wake up. If it were anyone that I cared about, I would be going out of my mind too.

"How long have you two been dating?" Christian asked.

Dating. It felt weird using that word to describe my relationship with Dimitri. What we had was more than just dating it was a connection that couldn't be described using words that teenagers did when they liked someone. I didn't bother correcting Christian though and instead answered him simply.

"A few months now. I know I didn't say anything to any of you but it was better if we kept our relationship a secret. You know with the whole mentor-student thing."

"You weren't really his student though," Eddie pointed out.

"I was undercover, I had to keep up appearances."

They stayed for a little while longer, mostly Lissa asking questions about Avery and talking about how she couldn't believe that Avery was a spirit-user too. Christian occasionally offered his input but Eddie remained quiet the entire time. When Lissa and Christian were getting ready to leave I pulled him back so I could talk to him quietly.

"What's going on?" I asked. "You're more reserved than usual."

He ran his hand through his hair. "There's a group of people out there who are responsible for the murder and I don't know if I can keep both Christian and Lissa safe."

His dedication to his guardian duties never fell short and all I could do was stare at him in admiration.

I placed my hands on his shoulders, forcing him to look at me. "Eddie you're not alone. If you're afraid for them then I can talk to Abe and have him assign another guardian each to Lissa and Christian. Dimitri, Pavel and I will have your back so we're not going to let anything happen to them. I highly doubt that they're in any danger. Whoever these people are only had Tatiana as their target."

He nodded slowly, taking in what I was saying. "Maybe they should have an extra guardian, just in case."

"Of course. I'll talk to Abe and see if he can sort something out. It'll take about a week or two but they'll be fine."

Eddie's mouth twitched like he was trying to smile but couldn't seem too. "Thank god you're okay Rose. I don't know what I would have done if you had died."

"I'm not going anywhere, all of us will be fine."

Lissa asked if I wanted to join them but I declined since I still needed to talk to Adrian. I hadn't even properly checked in on him and how he was handling his great aunt's death. He had Sydney and I trusted that she was doing everything she could to help him. There was something else I couldn't wait to give them and gripped the object in my fist.

I was hoping they would love the idea as much as I thought they would. Their room was only a few doors down and when I knocked on their door I was mildly surprised by the girl standing in front of me. She looked around my age, she had light brown hair, blue eyes and she was a moroi. For a second I thought I had walked up to the wrong room and opened my mouth to apologise when I realised who it was.

"Sydney?"

She smiled at me hesitantly. "Hey Rose. Adrian gave me a charmed necklace to wear so no one knows that I'm human."

To anyone else, the compulsion in the charmed necklace would make someone believe that they were seeing a moroi girl but since I was far more resistant to compulsion than anyone, it only took me a few seconds to see through it.

"Is Adrian here?"

"Of course," she said, stepping aside so I could enter. "I was just making coffee, you want some?"

I scrunched my face up in response. She knew how much I hated coffee and yet she was still offering me some.

"I'll take that as a no. How about hot chocolate?"

"Sounds better." I was the complete opposite to her I couldn't understand how she could handle the bitter taste of coffee. It just gave me a headache.

"Hey little dhampir."

I spun around to see Adrian striding over to me looking much better than when I had seen him when I first woke up from my coma. His hair was wet, suggesting that he had just gotten out of the shower but he still looked tired and worn out. It had to be hard on him. I walked straight up to him and wrapped my arms around his torso. His arms went around my shoulders and he rested his head on top of mine. Being asked how he was doing was something I know he must have been sick of hearing.

It was the way I was when my mother had died and I hated constantly being asked if I was okay. Sometimes physical comfort was what someone needed during a hard time. I held onto him a little longer before letting go and looking up at him. A silent message passed through us of making sure he knew that I was here for him and that I was sorry for his loss. He gave me a slight nod in understanding. Sydney returned with her mug of coffee and handed me my hot chocolate. We sat down in the living area and I pulled out the object that I had pocketed when I came over, placing it on the coffee table in front of them. They both looked at me in confusion.

"It's for you two," I explained, blowing on the hot chocolate so it would cool down.

"Keys?" asked Sydney.

"Yep. To my house and it's close to Court so you won't be too far away."

Adrian and Sydney exchanged a look. "You're giving us the keys to your house because?"

I shrugged. "It'll be easier for you two to stay at my place without having to always rely on a charmed necklace. What if something happens and someone notices that Sydney is human? She'll be safer away from Court and don't worry about this place being in lockdown, I can find a way to sneak you two out."

"Are you sure?" Adrian asked slowly. "I figured you would rather go there with Belikov."

"Honestly, at first I wanted to but it will be better for me to stay here where I can be closer in case something happens. There will be wards around the house and we can easily find feeders for Adrian. Besides, you'll have time away from everyone here."

Sydney's lips lifted into a smile. "Thank you Rose, you have no idea how much this will help us."

I returned the smile. "No problem, that house has been empty for a while so might as well give it to you two until you guys go home."

The look that both Adrian and Sydney gave me made me feel like I had delivered the best possible news to them. Seeing Adrian in a slightly better mood lifted my spirits and from there, conversation flowed.

"I met Dimitri, well sort of," said Sydney. "He really cares about you, it was so obvious."

"Sort of?"

"It was hard to talk to him when the only person he was paying attention to was you. It was a brief introduction but it's perfectly clear how strongly he feels about you. I even met your friends from the academy, they all seem nice."

"Yeah they are," I responded.

Adrian was about to speak when a knock on the door cut him off. My eyes flashed over to Sydney to check that the charmed necklace was still working in case it was someone we didn't know that was behind the door.

Adrian jumped up to answer it. The door opened to reveal Abe, Pavel and Dimitri as they strolled into the room. Dimitri came over to the couch I was sitting on and sat down next to me.

"Did you find anything?" I questioned once everyone was seated.

Abe answered me. "No fingerprints or DNA samples from the crime scene, not even on the stake. Even security footage was tampered with, they wiped everything around the time the murder happened and Guardian Croft is still in the process of conducting interviews. The medical examiner did find that Priscilla died through suffocation."

"We believe that an air-user may have used their magic on her," Dimitri elaborated. "Add that evidence with the burn marks we saw on one of the Queen's guards, we definitely know that moroi are involved."

My eyes shifted towards Adrian who was holding Sydney's hand tightly. She winced slightly but didn't complain, her eyes full of sympathy for him having to listen to this.

"Have you found anything that could help us?" I asked, desperate for some good news. "Maybe a lead that we can follow."

Abe nodded. "The symbol that was on the black cloth that they found is related to an old Romanian legend of a group of moroi's, dhampir's and humans that were known as assassins."

"The Dark Knights."

All eyes snapped towards Sydney once she had spoken. She didn't shy away from all the attention though in fact she looked eager to continue on with the explanation.

"I've read about them before, there isn't much on them but the stories of what they did was interesting. It goes all the way back to the time when vampires and humans were integrated into one society. I don't get what that symbol would have anything to with what happened though."

Abe sighed, running a hand over his face. "No one does but Guardian Croft knows someone that might be able to help us."

I stood up. "Great, who is it? I can go talk to them right now."

"He's in Pittsburgh."

"Oh."

Dimitri spoke up. "Rose and I can travel to Pittsburgh and meet this person. I'm sure we can find a way out of here, Guardian Croft may be able to pull a few strings for us."

"Well actually," I started. "It might be better if he doesn't know. Adrian and Sydney will be moving into my house temporarily and I need to sneak them out of here. I won't be able to do that if Hans knows what we're trying to do."

"It's no rush Rose," said Adrian. "We can wait a little longer if we need to."

I shook my head. "No the sooner we get you to the house the better, besides Dimitri and I might as well take you two there ourselves so we know that you'll be safe."

"Roza is right, it'll be safer if you went with us."

It was decided that Adrian and Sydney would sneak out with us so we could drop them off while Dimitri and I travel to Pittsburgh. The idea of the two of us being able to spend some real time together brightened my mood and I couldn't wait to get on the road. Yes it was for my assignment and I had to be professional but I definitely didn't have to be the entire time, only when I was meeting this person in Pittsburgh.

It'll give the both of us some time to ourselves without anyone else around. A selfish part of me wanted to extend this trip over two days so we could spend the night together at a hotel but I knew that wasn't going to happen if we found something that could help us. There were murderers out there and if they do strike again, they're not going to wait until I've enjoyed a good night with Dimitri.

"Who are we meeting?"

"A man named Professor Skye, he teaches at St. Connall's Academy." Abe pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me. "That's the address. I would prefer it if you waited until tonight to leave since that's the best time to get out of Court."

I shoved the paper into my back pocket. "We'll be ready by then."

Sitting back down next to Dimitri, I laced my fingers through his. "We're going on a road trip Comrade."

He smiled at me and leaned in closer so no one could hear him. "I can't wait."

 **AN: Ooh Rose and Dimitri on a road trip, this should be fun! Anyway, chapter five should be up in a few days, I'll try not to wait too long to update. Thank you so much for reading, much love xoxo Have a good day/night! :D**


	5. Just the Beginning

**AN: Hey there! I've been having major writer's block lately so it's been hard to write new chapters :( I was constantly stopping and starting when I was writing this chapter that it took me so much longer to get done. I'm going to keep pushing though and try to do what I can to get back into consistent updating cause it feels weird to not post as often as I use to. I'm really sorry about the wait. Thank you so much to everyone for the reviews, favourites and follows xo Anyway here is chapter five. Enjoy!**

 **RPOV**

"Remember you never helped us, if anyone asks there was no one here. Got it?"

The guardian nodded her head not that she had a choice, not when she was under my compulsion.

I smiled brightly, satisfied at how easy it was to compel her. "Great, now get back to work."

She complied and I climbed into the car where Dimitri, Sydney and Adrian were waiting for me. It was early in the moroi night but we had to leave while the sun was up for safety reasons. Shutting the door, I put my seatbelt on and Dimitri stepped on the gas. Even though I had practically begged Dimitri to let me drive he refused to let me behind the wheel since he didn't trust my driving skills.

"Never did I think I would see the day where I would willingly allow you to compel a guardian," said Dimitri as he drove out of the Court's gates.

"She has that negative effect on people where they do things that they never thought they would do," Sydney spoke up from the backseat.

I turned to look at her. "Negative? Please you enjoy all the reckless things I make you do."

"Didn't say it was a bad thing. Life would be boring without you Rose."

Dimitri spared me a glance. "Sydney's not wrong, you're certainly not afraid to push the boundaries."

"That's his nice way of saying that you're fucking crazy," Adrian piped in.

I flipped him off without looking at him and I heard him chuckle. "Take a right here."

Dimitri took the turn and we were surrounded by an endless amount of tree's that anyone would easily get lost in if they weren't familiar with the place. I knew my way around here like the back of my hand since I had driven down this path hundreds of times. In the distance, I could see black gates come into view and my house behind it.

The house wasn't huge although it was a little too big for one person. It was built like a safe house, meaning not only were there wards around the entire area but there were also security cameras placed outside. Dimitri slowed down as we came to stop outside of the gates and I rolled down the window to reach out towards the keypad.

I typed in the long password consisting of a combination of letters and numbers until the light turned green. The gates opened and we drove into the driveway. Looking up at the house, I didn't realise how much I missed this place and I kind of wished that I could stay here with Dimitri instead of at Court.

"Wow," Sydney murmured. "This is so much better than Court."

We all stepped out of the car and I hooked my arm through Sydney's while the guys took care of the bags.

"Come on, I'll give you a tour of the place."

I dragged all of them along throughout the entire house showing them where everything was and how to manage the security system in case something happened. I highly doubted that they would be in any kind of danger but I had to make sure just in case.

"This is the code to for the keypad at the front gate," I informed, handing them the piece of paper I had written it on. "No one should come around except for Abe or myself so be careful of any strangers."

"We'll be fine Rose," Adrian assured as he wrapped his arm around Sydney's waist. "You'll be the first person we call if something happens but right now you need to get to Pittsburgh."

"He's right, they'll be safe here." Dimitri grabbed my hand. "Come on Roza."

We said goodbye and started up the car to leave for our three hour road trip. It wasn't that far unfortunately meaning we didn't have as much alone time as I had hoped. It was better than nothing though. I started playing with the radio trying to find a station with decent music when Dimitri reached his hand out to stop me. I didn't let him and slapped his hand away making him stare at me in confusion.

"No way Comrade. If you're not going to let me drive then I get to control the music."

His frown disappeared and he looked at me with amusement. "Fine, just don't pick anything weird."

I scoffed at his comment. "Weird music is in your department not mine."

Settling for a station that played current pop music much to Dimitri's dismay we set off on the road towards Pittsburgh. He had one hand on the steering wheel while the other was entwined in mine. In this moment, I felt comfortable with him by my side and away from the chaos at Court that was bound to become even worse. We would be returning later tonight but a day like this was luxury to the both of us.

"How are you dealing with everything?" Dimitri asked, breaking the silence.

"I'm good."

"Are you really though?"

I turned towards him. "What do you mean?"

He answered me without taking his eyes off the road. "We never really talked about what happened with Avery or the way we left things at the academy. As soon as you woke up we just went straight into having a relationship and it's like what happened a few weeks ago never did."

I chewed on my bottom lip as he spoke. He was right, we had completely neglected the last few weeks and just moved on from it. I had to especially with the mission now being my main priority but if I've learnt anything from my past experiences, it was better to not bury everything inside.

"I don't know what to say. What Avery did caught me off guard, it surprised everyone but I'm okay now. I'm not one hundred per cent myself because a few things have changed yet there's no huge concern."

Dimitri paused before speaking again, sounding unsure of his words. "What was going on when you were in the coma? Were you aware of what had happened to you?"

My mood shifted as I thought back to the brief time I had with my mum. I hadn't told anyone about it, not that I had the chance to.

"I saw my mum," I whispered.

He noticed the immediate change in me but he seemed taken aback by my answer. "Your mother?"

Glancing away from him, I stared out the window. "When I woke up while I was still in a coma, I was surrounded by darkness. I couldn't see anything except for shadows like they were covering me and no matter how loud I yelled or how long I ran, there was nothing. You said that I was out for a week so maybe that's how long I was there but it felt like I was there for much longer."

I took a deep shaky breath and Dimitri squeezed my hand slightly, encouraging me to continue.

"Eventually out of nowhere she appeared and when I hugged her….when I hugged her she felt so real. She said that I was stuck in a place between the living and the dead, the shadows were stopping me from returning to my body. And I was letting them. I didn't know I was until she told me, all I had to do was fight through it and I would wake up."

My voice quietened and I looked down at my lap. "I almost didn't. My mother was right there Dimitri and if I had stayed then I would be there with her. I thought that I would have her back again but she was right. I couldn't stay and abandon everything to be stuck in the middle of nowhere for the rest of my existence."

"Do you regret it?" he asked quietly.

I shook my head slowly. "No. I miss her and those few minutes I had with her meant the world to me but my life is here, with you and the rest of my family and friends. If I was meant to die then I would have except I was given a way out and I would have been stupid to turn it down. It was hard to see her again but I really am okay."

"And us?"

This time, I looked at him. "There's not a single thing I doubt about us. I feel horrible for leaving the way I did and if it makes a difference I thought about you every single day. Being away from you is not something I want to go through again."

"You were all I could think about too. I felt like a part of me was missing when you left but you're here now and that's all that matters. It wasn't your fault though Roza. Yes I wish you had stayed but I understand what you had to do. You saved lives by taking down the people in New Orleans."

I flinched. "Did anyone tell you exactly what happened over there?"

"No just the situation with Avery," he responded cautiously, quickly glancing over at me. "Why? What happened?"

 _Please don't think differently of me._ "I um…I did something that I shouldn't have, something that I would take back if I could."

I sounded like I was about to tell Dimitri that I had cheated on him and not wanting him to get the wrong idea, I quickly continued.

"I killed someone."

"Killing strigoi is what you do," he stated, not understanding.

"No Dimitri. I killed a human. I swear I didn't mean to, it was like what happened with Mason. The darkness took over every part of me and I acted without thinking. I murdered an innocent."

He let out a deep breath, slowed the car down and pulled over. He turned to face me and cupped my face with both of his hands, looking right into my eyes.

"You can't blame yourself. The darkness was something that you had no control over and if this person was working with strigoi then I would hardly call them an innocent."

"I'm suppose to protect humans," I repeated the words I had said to Abe.

"You're duty is to protect innocent people not those working with strigoi to harm others."

I stared in his gorgeous brown eyes and clutched his shirt in my fist. "After everything that went down I'm just glad to have you back in my life."

He gave me a small smile and moved one hand down behind my neck. My lips parted and his eyes followed as he licked his lips. Lust took over my body and all I wanted right now was Dimitri. He brushed his lips against mine, teasing me and I playfully glared at him. Even though I loved it when he would tease me, I was desperate to kiss him and I closed the small gap between us.

The kiss was aggressive and heated, just what I wanted. One of his hands moved down my back and under my shirt sending chills through my body. I opened my mouth for him, his tongue rubbing against mine. The car was filled with the sound of our moans and heavy breathing to the point where I could barely hear the music. As much as I wanted to take it even further, having sex with him wouldn't work unless we were in the backseats and if we didn't have a place to be at very soon. As if we both came to the realisation at the same time, our kisses slowed and I kissed him twice before leaning my forehead against his.

"We have to-"

"I know," he breathed, cutting me off. "But we're continuing this once we get back to Court."

"Definitely."

We settled back into our seats and he started up the car again. He grabbed a hold of my hand again and looked at me.

"You know I love you right?"

I couldn't help the smile that formed on my lips. "Of course, I love you too."

* * *

There have been several colleges that I have been to all over the states for my missions but none of them looked as good as this one, not even St. Vladimir's. St. Connall's Academy didn't have the same gothic feel to it nor did it look as amazing as Court but it looked better than any college campus I had seen. It was secluded as most academies were and after getting through the guardians stationed at the gates we parked the car and I stepped out to take in my surroundings.

The buildings looked bright and friendly with a huge courtyard out front where I could see students walking and sitting. The architecture style was stunning and even the trees looked beautiful. As we walked closer to the building entrance, several students stared at us as we passed. We did look a little intimidating, Dimitri especially with his height and guardian mask in place. Even though he looked serious, he looked a bit at ease and comfortable being here. When he glanced at me to smile, I knew it was because of me. We asked reception to tell us the whereabouts of Professor Skye and then headed in the direction of his office.

"Don't forget to introduce yourself as Guardian Hathaway," Dimitri reminded me.

"Noted."

I tried not to think too much about how I was so use to hearing my mother be referred by that name. I couldn't let my focus waver, it was time to be professional and concentrate on what I needed to do here. The interior of the building was just as extravagant and although academics weren't really my thing this place made it seem appealing. I had a feeling Lissa would be the type to love it here.

"This is it." We came to stop at a door and I knocked twice waiting for him to answer.

"Can I help you?" A voice spoke to my left.

Dimitri and I both spun around with speed that clearly stunned the person making them raise both of their hands.

"Easy there."

I straightened up as I took the person in. He was an old moroi man, maybe in his sixties wearing a plain brown suit and peering at us over his glasses.

"We're looking for Professor Skye," Dimitri spoke politely.

"That would be me, I wasn't aware that I had an appointment with…I'm sorry who are you?"

"I'm Guardian Belikov and this is my partner Guardian Hathaway, we have arrived from Court," he said, shaking hands with the professor. "We're here to ask you for help for a case. Guardian Croft spoke highly of you and advised that you were the best person to speak with."

The man's face brightened. "Ah yes, he called earlier to let me know that I would be expecting visitors. And please call me Grant. "

I was getting eager to get on with my questioning. "I apologise but we are on a tight schedule."

"I would assume so. Well come on in."

He opened the door to his office and we followed behind him. I wouldn't say the place was a mess but it was obvious that he was a busy man. His desk was filled with piles of papers and open files.

"Hans has told me that you wanted to know about the Dark Knights," he said, sitting behind his desk.

"Anything you know will be useful," I replied, taking a seat in one of the chairs. "How dangerous are they?"

Grant sighed heavily and swivelled in his chair to look through his bookshelf. "I want to assure you that they're not that big of a problem but I'm afraid I can't say that. They have a reputation of using ruthless tactics to get what they want. If murdering our Queen doesn't show that then I don't know what would."

He ran his hands over the spines of the books until he found the one he was looking for. Removing it from the shelf, he turned around in his chair and started flicking through the old pages. He stopped at one of the pages and flipped the book around so we could see.

"That's the symbol on the cloth that we found," I pointed to the picture.

"It is the mark that they used to symbolise their brotherhood. This group was created centuries ago when moroi, dhampirs and humans co-existed. It was only composed of men but as time went on, I would say that it is a combination of men and women who share the same belief. The black background represents the darkness and the symbol is generally always drawn in blood to represent their unity."

"What's the whole point to this group?" I questioned.

"They believe in power and dominance above everyone and challenging the system when it goes against their belief's. They're not afraid to go to extreme lengths and if taking people's lives is needed, then they will do it."

"Why do you think they targeted the Queen," asked Dimitri, hanging off Grant's every word.

"She was the highest in charge, the one who had the last say and if she wanted something to happen then it would. Queen Tatiana had the power that these people desire. There could be several reasons as to why they chose her but one thing is for sure, she was a threat to them. I don't know what her plans were however it was enough to anger them."

I leaned back in my chair. "We need to find out what she was planning and if these people knew what it was, it could mean that the moroi that helped with the murders is most likely a royal moroi who is part of the council."

Dimitri nodded in agreement. "They're the ones we need to focus on the most. You said that they were dangerous, everyone back at Court is scared for their lives. Are the people there safe?"

Dimitri and I stared Grant down as we waited for him to answer. He took his glasses off and ran a hand over his face.

"Queen Tatiana was just the beginning."

 **AN: And there's chapter five. If you want to know what the symbol of The Dark Knights looks like, just look at the cover image for this story. Anyway, I'm not sure when the next chapter will be posted, definitely some time this week and I am starting to feel like I'm getting a bit of my stride back. I hope that you guys will be okay with being patient until I get through this. I love hearing from all of you so please review if you want to. Thank you so much for reading, much love xoxo Have a good day/night! :D**


	6. I'm Trusting You

**AN: Hey Everyone! Thank you so much for the reviews, favourites and follows. Here's chapter six, enjoy! :)**

 **RPOV**

"I still think my idea is better I know you don't agree with it but you can't deny that it will work."

Dimitri shook his head. "No Roza we have to find a different way to do this."

We were sitting outside in the courtyard at a table discussing our brief meeting with Grant. There were a few theories that we had come up with but nothing solid just yet. I had suggested that we "borrow" the confidential files that Tatiana had in her office so we could find out what she was planning. Dimitri had disagreed saying that even though I was use to breaking rules, he wasn't.

"Fine what would you suggest that we do then?"

"We can ask Guardian Croft and see if he is able to get them for us."

I placed my elbows on the table. "He might be head Guardian but his position has limitations. Tatiana's files were kept secret the only other person who had access to it was Priscilla. Since both of them are dead they go into the hands of the next person in line for the throne. Re-elections is a long process and I highly doubt our next leader will hand the files over to us if we ask politely."

Dimitri sighed realising that I had a point. "We won't be able to get anywhere near her office it's been closed off to everyone."

"You seem to have forgotten who you're talking to," I replied dryly.

"I know what you can do and although I don't doubt how good you are there is always the chance of you getting caught."

"Have a little faith Comrade."

"Roza," he warned, glaring at me. "The Queen's chambers are guarded by several guardians even you can't compel that many all at once."

I shrugged. "We'll figure something out."

He stayed silent and I knew he was preparing another argument against my idea. I reached over the table and took his hands in mine.

"Nothing bad is going to happen okay? The reason I have never gotten caught before in missions is because I have people like Abe, Adrian and Sydney to help me. We all work as a team to find a way to get through the mission. Now that you're part of the group it just makes us all stronger as a team. And if something does happen then it's not a big deal. There's a solution to every problem."

He let out a breath. "I'm trusting you."

"It's all I'm asking for," I said, standing up. "We should head back before sunset and start forming a plan."

It was the afternoon for humans so we didn't have plenty of time and the sooner we were at Court, the sooner we would find answers. As we drove back to Court I called Abe and filled him in on what Grant had said and my idea to steal Tatiana's files.

It would save time to discuss our strategy while we were still on the road than to wait until we returned. Adrian's compulsion would be handy but I didn't want to involve him in this. It was better to leave him to grief for his loss without being dragged into my ridiculous plans. After Abe and I had sorted everything out I explained our plan to Dimitri.

"Abe is going to help me with compelling the guardians if anything goes wrong. He's finding out how many will be there right now and we're going to come up with a distraction."

"What's the distraction?" he asked.

"Fire alarm. They will have to leave their post to make sure everyone is okay and yes I know, pulling the fire alarm while there are murderer's on the loose is going to freak everyone out but it's all I could come up with."

Dimitri nodded. "It should work, that'll give you time to sneak into her office and steal all the files."

"Exactly I am going to need you and Pavel to stand watch and let me know when to get out."

"Sounds good. We should let Eddie, Lissa and Christian know what we're up to so they know that there's actually no real danger."

I pictured Eddie jumping straight into guardian mode to protect Lissa and Christian thinking that their lives were at risk. I didn't want him to worry over a false alarm. "Agreed."

It took us less time to travel between Court and Pittsburgh since Dimitri was breaking all the speed limits to get back before it became dark. The sun was slowly disappearing and the moroi day wasn't too far from beginning.

"Roza."

"Hmm?" My eyelids were starting to get a little heavy after not having rested properly since I had gotten out of my coma.

"There are going to be guardians at the front gate that you need to compel."

His words forced me to stay awake and I rubbed my eyes to keep them open. The Court came into view through the trees and I straightened up, preparing to compel whomever I needed to. Back at the academy there weren't too many guardians on patrol around the borders but here at Court, with the recent murders there were four of them along with two more not too far behind them.

Dimitri swore in Russian. "We just need to get past the first four and then we can deal with the other two later."

"They're going to be curious trying to figure out why we were able to leave and return when technically no one is allowed to leave."

He reached out and took my hand in his. "I trust you remember? You can do this."

As we neared the gates, all six guardians were focused on us and I took in a deep breath to steady my heartbeat. Our car came to a stop and two guardians approached us holding their stakes. I opened the door and stepped out to make sure they knew that I wasn't a strigoi or a threat.

"No one is permitted to enter Court, whatever business you have here is going to have to wait," one of them commanded.

My eyes were trained on his. "You're going to let us in, no questions asked and you're not going to tell anyone about this."

To all of them I looked like a dhampir meaning the chances of them suspecting that I was using compulsion were slim. His tense body relaxed and his eyes glazed over as he stepped aside confusing the other guardians. Dimitri was about to step out of the car to join me but I shook my head at him. I was under control and there didn't seem to be a problem just yet.

"Guardian Lay we can't let them in," spoke the second guardian.

My eyes snapped towards her and I repeated the same words to her, this time asking her to open the gates for us. As she did the other four guardians knew that something was wrong if these two were so willing to let us enter. Before they could restrain me, I did something that I had never done. I focused my compulsion on the four of them all at once.

My compulsion was powerful but I had never thought to use it on multiple people at the same time because I didn't know I could do that. It worked. They all remained still without me having to speak to them. It was as if just thinking about what I wanted them to do while staring at him was enough to make them listen to me. Without taking my eyes off of them, I signalled Dimitri to continue driving. He looked just as surprised as I did. When he had passed over the borders, I focused my attention back onto the guardians.

"You never saw us here."

They all nodded simultaneously and I ran past them feeling a sudden wave of faintness wash over me. It caused to falter in my steps and blurred my vision.

"Roza?"

I clutched my head in my hands and breathed through my mouth. My legs gave way and I expected my knees to hit the ground but a pair of strong arms kept me upright. Dimitri had caught me and lifted me into his arms, carrying me.

"What's wrong? What just happened?" he asked frantically.

"I'm fine," I mumbled. "I just feel a little light-headed."

He fell into a slow jog as he hurried to most likely take me back to our room and I closed my eyes waiting for the dizziness to pass.

"You almost collapsed I wouldn't call that fine."

It was as if I lost all my energy and my body felt limp. "You worry too much Comrade."

He grumbled something but I couldn't make out what he had said. I heard the sound of a door being opened and closed letting me know that we had made it back to the room. He gently placed me on the couch and I welcomed the comfort, feeling the earlier fatigue take over me.

"Get some rest Roza."

If I didn't feel the way I did right now I would have refused to sleep since we had the mission to work on but there was no way my body was going to reject the chance to rest.

* * *

"It wasn't that big of a deal. I hadn't slept properly and I didn't eat anything but I'm okay now."

"Are you sure?" Dimitri questioned again.

I glared at him to let him know that his constant worrying was completely unnecessary. It was sweet that he was looking out for me but it was becoming suffocating. It was bad enough that I had Abe fretting over me; I didn't need Dimitri doing it too.

"Dimitri told us that you could barely stand," said Abe.

"I can stand now." I stood up to prove my point. "It was only because I was using energy that I didn't even have to sneak back into Court."

"Yeah about that," Dimitri started. "I wasn't aware that you could compel that many people at once."

"Neither did I but hey I'm not complaining, using compulsion on four people at once is pretty awesome."

"Not if you're going to pass out every time you do it," Abe pointed out.

Pavel joined in. "If she works on it and learns to master that ability then it would be incredible. Only using her mind to control more than one person in one go is something that could be valuable."

"I second that," I agreed. "We can worry about that later though, right now we need to concentrate on getting those files. How many guardians are there in the Queen's chambers?"

"There's only three of them not as many as I thought there would be," Abe answered. "I'm going to pull the fire alarm, Pavel is going to make sure that the guardians leave their post, Dimitri you're going to stand watch and Rose you need to get in and out of there within five minutes. That's all the time you will have, can you do it?"

"Absolutely. Wait did you tell Eddie, Lissa and Christian?"

Dimitri nodded. "They know and they'll follow everyone else during evacuation. We need to hurry and get this done."

The four of us left the room and headed down towards the Tatiana's office. It was still morning for us and there were plenty of people around and as I watched them go about their day I almost felt bad. We were about to scare them when there was no danger. Abe parted with us first to make his way towards the nearest place to pull the fire alarm and Pavel attempted to look inconspicuous as he approached where the guardians were, acting as if he was just walking past.

Dimitri and I hid behind the wall waiting for the sound of the alarm. Just when Pavel fell into their line of vision, the sound of the alarm went off blaring through the hallways causing the guardians to tense up at the sudden noise. Pavel came to a stop and exchanged looks with them before speaking a few words. I could hear him telling them that they needed to make sure everything was okay and that there was no threat.

"Come on, leave already," I murmured, impatiently waiting for them to leave with Pavel.

They finally left their position and Pavel glanced over his shoulder to give me a single nod.

"Let's go," I said, pulling on Dimitri's arm.

We raced down the corridor and opened the door, which was Priscilla's office. We had to get through hers to enter Tatiana's but as we expected it was locked. Dimitri crouched down and started his work on picking the lock while I went through Priscilla's file drawer looking for anything that we would need.

Most of it was useless with the files being about Council meetings that weren't relevant and some of them about the events that were going to be held. I made sure to be aware of our surroundings in case someone walked past and saw us. It was hard to make out any sounds when the alarm was all I could hear.

"Alright, it's unlocked."

Shoving the files back into the drawer, I pushed the door open to Tatiana's office and went straight to her file cabinet. It was locked obviously but I tugged on it hard enough to get it open and ran my fingers over the tabs of the files.

"Three minutes left," Dimitri called out.

I was flipping the files open and skimming over the papers as quickly as I could but there was nothing in here that would result in her death. Just as I was about to move on to her desk drawers, my eye caught an unlabelled file in the very back and when I opened it I knew that I had found what we needed. Shutting the drawer I moved onto her desk and rummaged through the desk drawers but there wasn't anything there.

"One minute."

"I'm done," I called out as I shut the door behind me. "I've got it let's get out of here."

We hurried out of there and walked through the empty halls when we heard a voice behind us.

"Guardian Belikov, Rose."

Dimitri immediately reached out and pulled the file from my hands and hid it in his duster, pulling his coat around him to hide it. We both stopped walking and saw Hans catching up to us.

"What are two doing? You should be outside with everyone else."

I opened my mouth to respond but Dimitri beat me to it. "We were doing a quick round to ensure that everyone made it out. Was it a drill or is there a real threat?"

Thank goodness for his quick thinking. Hans sighed heavily and shook his head slowly.

"I'm afraid it wasn't a drill."

That wasn't what I expected to hear. "It wasn't?"

I quickly spared a look at Dimitri and he looked just as confused as I did. We were the ones who had caused the fire alarm.

"We found another body."

 **AN: Another body? Do you think it's someone close to Rose? Anyway, thank you so much for reading, much love xoxo Have a good day/night! :D**


	7. Moroi Water-Users

**AN: Hey Everyone! I know it's been a while since I've updated and I'm still stuck in writer's block :( I thought I would be past it by now but it does take a lot more effort than usual for me to sit down and write the chapters. All I can say is that I'm sorry but I'm not giving up. I will finish this story no matter how long it takes. If you have any tips to get through writer's block that would be super helpful! Thank you to everyone for all of the reviews, favourites and follows xo Anyway here's chapter seven. Enjoy!**

 **RPOV**

Thank goodness for my strong stomach or I would have contaminated the crime scene before me by throwing up. I had seen a lot of gruesome deaths since I was fifteen and you would think I was use to it but there was always a small part of me that felt saddened every time I was faced with a situation like this. The person sprawled out on the bed with their throat slashed was a royal moroi-Monica Szelsky.

I hadn't known what kind of person they were but what I did know was that she was specifically murdered for a reason. Someone was out to get her and whoever they were had succeeded. It wasn't difficult to guess who was behind it since a square piece of black material with the symbol of The Dark Knights painted in her blood was placed over her chest. I knew that this group wasn't done yet but I didn't expect there to be another murder so soon.

Dimitri was examining the room while I stood over Monica's body trying to get a closer look. There were no burn marks on her and I couldn't tell if she had been suffocated until an autopsy was done on her. Hans had excused himself earlier to handle the fire alarm situation and hopefully calm down the people, which I highly doubted would be successful.

"Did we do this?" I asked quietly.

Dimitri glanced over his shoulder at me. "What do you mean?"

"Is Monica dead because of us? What if pulling the fire alarm helped this group of people kill her or helped them escape after Monica was murdered? They could have easily blended in with the crowd and the evacuation is the perfect alibi."

His expression shifted and even though he wanted to reassure me that it wasn't the case, I could tell he was thinking the same thing.

"We can't think like that," he said finally.

I returned my attention back to Monica and suddenly realised something. "Where are her guardians?"

Dimitri frowned. "That's a good question. She would have two assigned guardians and at least one of them should have been with her."

"What if they're a part of the group? It's possible that they helped kill Monica, it's not unheard of for guardians to go rogue."

"What would be in it for them though?" he questioned. "There's a very high chance that guardians are involved in this group but there has to be a reason for why they would go against their duties to murder."

"There has to be a reason for why any of them are doing this," I mumbled.

Abe and Pavel appeared in the doorway taking in the sight before them before they could even focus on me and Dimitri. "Guardian Croft told us there was another murder."

I nodded. "Monica Szelsky, her throat was slashed, same red symbol drawn in blood and her guardians are missing."

"Missing?" Abe asked, lifting an eyebrow. "That's new."

"We need to locate their whereabouts as soon as possible," Dimitri stated. "I'm going to head over to guardian headquarters and see if anyone there can track them down."

He handed me the file that I had taken from Tatiana's office and placed a quick kiss on my forehead before leaving.

"What is that?"

"The file we found in Tatiana's drawer. Let's go back to my room and look over it, someone will be here soon to examine the crime scene."

When we had settled into my living room, we were bent over the file around the table spreading out all the papers and reading through her notes thoroughly, careful not to miss anything.

"Unbelievable," I breathed, my disbelief growing as I continued reading.

"This would sort of explain why she was murdered," said Pavel. "She was planning on lowering the age decree for novices."

"This bitch wanted sixteen year olds to graduate and become guardians as if sending eighteen year olds out there wasn't already a risk. Some novices who graduate at eighteen don't even last a year, there's no way she could honestly believe that this is the solution to protect moroi."

"There has to be more to this," murmured Abe. "A majority of moroi don't care about dhampir lives and this group is going to extreme lengths to protect these novices."

He did have a point. "It's highly likely that this group is mostly composed of moroi but their beliefs are centred around fighting against injustice so there is a possibility that they're in favour of equality between moroi and dhampir's."

Pavel didn't seem to agree. "That's a bit of a stretch, sure there are moroi out there who are against the inequality as much as dhampir's but to kill in order to have everyone on the same level is pushing it."

"What are we missing?" I asked in frustration, desperately scanning over the papers looking for something that we might have missed.

Abe was glancing over my shoulder when he pointed to something. "Wait, what is that?"

There was a piece of paper that I hadn't paid much attention to. I picked it up and read over the entire page carefully, several words screaming out to me. This was much worse than I had thought this went beyond lowering the age decree. Pavel moved behind me to read the paper over my shoulder and there was a moment of heavy silence. It was as if we were all too afraid to say the words out loud, forcing us to believe that it really was real. The more I was finding out about Tatiana's secret plans, the less sympathetic I was feeling towards her death.

"We found another piece to the puzzle," Pavel whispered.

I passed the paper to them and let my head fall into my hands. "And it also creates more questions. There's still more to this that we don't know yet, it doesn't explain why Monica was murdered."

"This lockdown situation is useless Rose. You and Dimitri were able to sneak in and out without anyone's knowledge, these people are likely to have done the same," Abe voiced his concerns.

"We need to find a way to protect all of these people," I said. "I'm going to find Hans and discuss some strategies to increase the protection around here."

I left the room without another word and went on my search for Hans. Providing protection back at the academy was a huge challenge but here at Court it was even worse with the place being much bigger. Sure there were far more guardians but they weren't everywhere all at once. I needed to step up my game and an idea to call in reinforcements came to mind.

Through my travelling I had met a lot of people, although they didn't know my secret they did think that I was a novice training to be a guardian. I had helped them and they offered their assistance for whenever I would need it and it was time I take them up on the offer. I made a mental note to contact as soon as I could. The more people here helping out, the better.

As I darted past the crowds of people, I could see fear etched onto their faces at not knowing what they were in danger from. It was the aftermath of the fire alarm and everyone around me seemed to be running around confused about what to do. I didn't have time to stick around and reassure them and instead ignored them as I started to pick up the pace to guardian headquarters.

It was chaotic as expected and I caught a glimpse of Dimitri talking to two other guardians with their heads close together. I focused on listening to their conversation and I instantly tapped into their voices to find that they were discussing about the location of Monica's guardians. Knowing Dimitri would be fine on his own, I scanned the room until I found Hans handing out instructions to other guardians. His eyes settled on me and he quickly dismissed himself, making his way towards me.

"Did you find anything in Monica's room?" he asked.

"Nothing that could help us but we do know that it was the same group of people."

I didn't tell him anything about what I had found in Tatiana's files, completely aware of the amount of trouble I would be in if he knew what I had done.

"Guardian Belikov has formed a small team to locate Monica's guardians, one of them is on vacation in Paris and has been long before the Queen's murder. Her other guardian is still missing."

"I'm sure they'll find them," I responded confidently. "The reason I'm here is because we need to figure out a way to protect all these people. There were no witnesses to any of the murders and nowhere near enough evidence."

He sighed and a closer look at him told me that he hadn't been resting in a while. He looked tired and worn out, which was understandable.

"The Court is still in lockdown meaning this group are still inside. They couldn't have slipped out especially with the murders being within a week of each other. It's only a matter of time before they strike again and we have prevent that from happening."

"I might have a temporary solution," I started. "We need to call in reinforcements, I know a group of people that would help us in protecting the people here. I know that we're not suppose to let people in but we have to open our doors to anyone who is willing to put a stop these murders before it gets way out of hand."

Hans chewed the bottom of his lip as he contemplated my suggestion. "I suppose that could help," he replied slowly. "Honestly, you were the reinforcement that we agreed to invite."

I know he didn't intend to make it sound like he was blaming me for not being able to stop Monica's death from happening but I still flinched at his words.

"I'm only one person, yes I can do things that others can't but I'm not capable of being everywhere at once. It would be easier if I had backup so if there are any guardians around here that don't mind working extra shifts then that would be great. I'm happy to do regular patrolling day and night to keep an eye out for anything."

Hans thought it would be a good idea and set to work with finding guardians to help out and before I could make my way over to Dimitri, I saw Eddie standing in the doorway.

"Eddie? What are you doing? Where are Lissa and Christian?" I questioned.

"They're with Abe and Pavel, I came down to see what was going on. Is it true that there was another murder?"

It was hard to tell what Eddie was thinking behind his hard exterior but I did know that he was prepared for anything. I ushered him inside and we walked towards Dimitri and the others.

"Monica Szelsky was found dead in her room, it was by the same people. One of her guardians are on vacation but the other one's whereabouts are still unknown."

"When did this happen?"

"During the fire alarm," I answered quietly.

His head snapped towards me but he thankfully didn't say anything. It wouldn't take long for him to figure out that our fire alarm stunt probably helped these people kill Monica. When we reached Dimitri's small group they seemed to have found something.

"We found him," Dimitri informed us. "Guardian Voss is still inside Court, we were able to track his phone, come on."

Not needing further instructions, Eddie and I joined them as we raced out of the room to find him. The GPS tracker on his phone let us know that he was in the gym that was mainly used by guardians. It seemed like an odd place to be after the fire alarm had gone off. Most guardians would make it their priority to make sure their moroi charge was safe and not leave their side but instead Voss was at the gym. Something didn't seem right.

"You two go around the other entrance," Dimitri ordered the two guardians. "Eddie and Rose you're with me."

Eddie immediately withdrew his stake and I mentally kicked myself for not remembering to bring mine. I would be fine without one anyway. We entered the gym to find it completely empty with equipment scattered here and there where people must have dropped it right when the alarm went off. I expanded my senses and listened out for a heartbeat but the only ones I could hear were ours.

"Rose are you getting anything?" Eddie asked softly.

I shook my head and concentrated harder as we walked across the gym, looking at every corner when it hit me. The smell of blood. It was faint but it was there.

"Locker room."

Dimitri didn't wait for me to elaborate as he ran towards the men's locker rooms, Eddie and I on his heels. When we rounded the corner we found Guardian Voss lying on his back in a puddle of water near the showers, his eyes blank and vacant and a wound on his head where he had been hit.

Dimitri bowed his head, Eddie remained still and I walked over to his body distantly aware of the other two guardians joining us. Kneeling down I ran my eyes over him looking for any obvious signs of the works that belonged to the group. Lightly grabbing his shoulder, I turned his body to the side and as I did, water poured out of his mouth mixing in with the puddle of water beneath him.

"Goddamn moroi water-users," I muttered.

 **AN: What do you think Rose found in Tatiana's files? Do you think Rose's reinforcements might be people that we all familiar with? I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you so much for reading xoxo Have a good day/night! :D**


	8. Thank You For Coming

**AN: Hello! Thank you to everyone for the reviews, favourites and follows xo here's chapter eight, enjoy! :D**

 **RPOV**

"Thank you for coming."

"No need to thank us Rose, if the roles were reversed you would do the same for us."

My eyes ran over each person standing in my living room. I had finally gotten around to calling in reinforcements and they had dropped what they were doing to be here. I was extremely fortunate to have the connections that I do. Dimitri, Abe, Pavel and Hans were here as usual and I watched them briefly introduce themselves to the newcomers.

When I had been stationed in Chicago I had met a group of six dhampirs who were promised guardians but didn't abide by the usual guardian rules. They weren't limited to following a moroi around everyday instead they formed their own group where they actively hunted strigoi with the help of their moroi who would help with their abilities. I knew this idea would make Hans uncomfortable with his loyalty to tradition but he didn't show it.

The group was led by a man named-Petar-he was a little older than Hans but his age certainly didn't slow him down. He was one of the best fighters I had seen. During one my missions, I had saved a few of their moroi while they were ambushed by a group of strigoi and while they didn't know what I really was, they didn't hesitate in helping me when I called. I immediately launched into explaining the events of the past few days and they all listened attentively taking in everything and nodding along.

"We know for certain that moroi are involved in this group, the burn marks on the victim's bodies and Guardian Voss suffocated by a water-user."

Hans stepped in. "We're concerned that the killings will escalate and we now know that they are nowhere near done. They're still here and probably right under our noses."

"Interrogations of every court guardian has been completed," said Dimitri. "We've found nothing so far with them and interviews with everyone else isn't easy considering the amount of people but we have guardians working on it."

Petar nodded his head as they spoke. "We need to hunt them down before they attack again."

"Exactly, we just don't know where to start. We don't have much to go by and we need to get this sorted immediately.

Eight bodies. That's how many bodies we had found since I was given this mission and I didn't want to stumble upon more. I was letting this situation get out of control and I needed to get my shit together if I was going to solve this mission. I hadn't even told Dimitri about what we had found in Tatiana's files. As they continued their discussion I scrambled to form a plan in my head, one that would be effective and help with closing in on this group. An idea came to me and Dimitri must have been watching me because he moved to my side.

"What is it?" he asked.

I chewed on my bottom lip as I slowly started to picture how we would go about this plan. "We have to lure them to us."

"How do we do that?"

"Call every person in Court to the Council Hall and we'll send a message to this group. At least one of the members will be there to hear what we have to say."

"And what do we intend on telling them?" Dimitri questioned.

By this point, the others had stopped talking and were listening to our conversation.

I thought over my words carefully. "We tell them that we know exactly who is behind these murders and we tell the people that we've already arrested them. It's doubtful that all the members will be there but all we need is one or two of them."

"So the members that are there will think that we've arrested the others who aren't at the meeting," finished Petar.

"That's the plan. I want every single one of you there to keep an eye out for anyone that seems suspicious enough for us to arrest and question. Majority of the people in attendance will feel relieved at the good news but it's important that we look for anyone who seems panicked."

Abe frowned. "How exactly will this help us?"

"It's a long shot but thinking that they've been caught will mean that they'll slip up and that gives us a chance to figure out who they are. All we need is one of them to break into telling us everything."

Hans stood up and straightened his clothes out. "I'm going to make an announcement for the meeting tonight and inform the guardians on our plan, we could use the extra help."

"Good. Abe and Pavel I need you to fill in Lissa, Christian and Eddie."

They nodded and the three of them left leaving Dimitri and I with the others. I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen to draw out the map of the council hall to explain where our positions would be stationed and exit strategies in case something went wrong. It would be impossible for every person to fit inside the hall, which was why we would be leaving the doors open and having guardians positioned in the hallways.

If we were going to catch someone we wanted to do it discreetly without drawing too much attention. I felt a surge of doubt rising in me thinking that it was unlikely that we would be able to pick one person out of an entire crowd but we had to try. Pushing my worries aside, I began assigning positions and listened to their inputs to strengthen our plan. Within thirty minutes everything was sorted and I had received a message from Hans letting me know that he had done his part. We still had some time before the meeting and before Petar could leave I pulled him aside remembering the promise I had made to Eddie.

"I need another favour," I said timidly.

"Just name it Rose."

"My friend Eddie is a guardian and he's worried about the safety of two of our friends. Is there any way that you could get two of your guys to keep an eye on them, they don't need to be with them all the time but maybe they could check in from time to time? I'm worried about them too especially with this group out there."

Petar gave me a warm smile. "Of course I can do that, just tell me who they are and I'll have Geoff and Dane on it."

"Vasilisa Dragomir and Christian Ozera, you'll meet them and Eddie at the meeting tonight."

"The last Dragomir? Hell I would be worried too," he commented.

I narrowed my eyes at him playfully. "Way to make me feel better."

Petar chuckled and followed the others as they left our room. As soon as the door closed behind them I threw myself onto the couch and snuggled against Dimitri as he pulled me closer to him. As much as I wanted to relax I remembered that I still needed to tell Dimitri about Tatiana's files. Adjusting myself into a comfortable position, I lifted my head to look up at him.

"I need to tell you something about what we found from the files that we stole."

Dimitri's head snapped towards me. "Anything useful?"

I grimaced. "We found motive to why this group would kill her and trust me it's not pretty."

He waited for me to continue and I buried my face in his chest. "She was making plans to take dhampir children away from their families and put them into a program called _Templa_ to train them into guardians."

Dimitri's body stiffened and I moved away slightly to look at him. As expected his eyes had darkened and his jaw was clenched.

"She was paving the way to lowering the age decree for novices to graduate as guardians," I murmured.

His grip on me loosened and I felt saddened watching Dimitri react to the bad news. "That is outrageous and knowing that the royal members of the council would agree to it makes me sick."

"You and me both."

"Do you think that's why she was murdered?" he asked, trying to breathe evenly.

"Possibly but wouldn't that mean this group's intention and the message they're trying to send is not as bad as we thought?"

Dimitri glanced at me. "There are better ways to send a message than to murder people, regardless of whether or not their intentions are pure."

He had a point. "Maybe that's why Andrew Drozdov was killed, he could have been in on this with Tatiana. Priscilla too."

"We need to know who else might have been on it, they could be this group's next targets."

"I didn't find anything else in the files so I might have to sneak back into her office and do a more thorough check. We could ask his guardian, the one that was on vacation, there's a chance that he would know something."

"Good thinking Roza."

I fell silent as I realised something. "If Adrian knew…"

Dimitri's eyes softened. "Maybe it would be best if we keep him out of this. He still needs time to mourn the death of his aunt."

"Yeah I guess," I mumbled.

Adrian was already dealing with a lot and the last thing I wanted was to make it even harder on him. Dimitri still wasn't over what I had just told him and I couldn't blame him since I was still feeling sick to my stomach about the idea of kidnapping children and ruining their lives. Our conversation ended there and we started preparing for tonight, changing into more suitable clothes and making sure that I had my stake on me this time. I refused to let anything go wrong tonight.

* * *

My back was pressed against the cool wall and I welcomed it as the air in the hall became warmer and warmer as people arrived. It seemed everyone at Court had turned up eager to hear the news on our progress of capturing this group of people even though we actually hadn't made any. I nodded at Eddie as he walked in with Lissa and Christian, noticing Geoff and Dane standing a few feet behind them.

Eddie was also helping with looking out for anyone suspicious and I scanned the hall to see just about every Court guardian all dressed in black and white pressed against the wall. Hans was standing at the front preparing to give his brief talk and I could see that there were people crowded all the way outside of the hall.

There were hardly any events at Court that would call this many people into one place but with a bunch of killers out there, it would hardly take that much persuasion. Hans cleared his throat into the microphone gaining everyone's attention and I looked over the crowd recognising a few people here and there. I crossed my arms over my chest as I half listened to what Hans was saying and half watching over the mass of people.

"We understand that all of you have been concerned about your safety and the safety of your loved ones as the attacks have increased since Queen Tatiana's death, may she rest in peace. However, we have called you all here tonight to assure you that these people who have been behind these kills have been arrested."

The room filled with murmurs and sighs of relief and I ignored the horrible feeling of tricking these people into thinking that there was no longer a threat. My eyes darted across the room and I could see the guardians doing the same in their subtle way. Looking for someone within this group was going to be difficult and I made the quick decision to tune all the noise out and focus on the sound of everyone's heartbeat.

There were steady heartbeats with a few that were beating faster than others but I was listening out for any that were elevated. I pushed myself off the wall and began walking through the crowd slowly hoping to get closer to finding this person. Nobody paid attention to me as they continued to talk amongst themselves and listen to the rest of Hans' talk.

Suddenly, it hit me like a wave and I spun around in the direction that I had heard their thumping heartbeat. I felt like I was hunting them and I was on the prowl closing in on them as their heart was beating faster than anyone else in the hall. I could almost feel them and I could faintly hear the sound of their heavy breathing. They were on the move. My footsteps quickened as they moved further and further away out into the hall. I pushed my way through the crowd not caring about the complaints or who I was elbowing aside. By now I was out in the hall, it was still crowded but I had a good hold on this person I just needed to see what they looked like.

 _Come on Rose, focus._

My eyes were skimming through the faces trying to connect it with their pounding heartbeat when I finally saw the person I was looking for. She was hurriedly making her way through the crowd and the sound of heavy breathing and a heart beating rapidly connected to her. I picked up the pace and saw her disappear outside blending in with the darkness.

Once I was finally away from the hall I used my speed to catch up to her and it only took me a matter of seconds. I came to a sudden stop in front of her blocking her path and scaring her as she let out a shriek and stumbled back. She fell to the ground and I took that as my chance to quickly study her.

She was a dhampir, and looked to be in her mid-twenties, whether or not she was a guardian I wasn't too sure. I didn't recognise her though. With lightening speed I grabbed her by her shirt and slammed her against the brick wall of the building. A look of horror passed through her eyes and I pressed my arm against her throat.

"You're one of them aren't you?" I asked darkly.

The fear in her eyes were now gone and was replaced with anger as her lips tightened showing me that she wasn't going to tell me anything.

"Being open and honest with me will make this a whole lot easier."

She growled and attempted to push me off of her but I pushed back harder this time.

"Fine, I guess I'll just have to torture it out of you."

Using my arm, I pressed down on her throat and waited until I saw her eyes roll back and she passed out. Her refusal to answer my question was enough for me to think that she knew something about this group and was most likely a part of it too.

I had no intention of torturing her but she didn't know that. It was a good thing I had strength in compulsion. I placed her arm around my shoulder and held onto her waist as I dragged her back inside towards guardian headquarters to throw her into a cell. It was going to be a long night.

 **AN: If any of you have suggestions on where I could take this story or what you would like to see, send me a message because I would love to hear them. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter thank you so much for reading xoxo**


	9. Who Killed Tatiana?

**AN: Hey Everyone! I'm sorry that my updates are irregular but I am trying. I wanted to get this chapter out as soon as I could even though I am swamped with work at the moment. Anyway, thank you for all the reviews, favourites and follows! I appreciate you all so much. Here's chapter nine, enjoy! :D**

 **RPOV**

I was beginning to drift in and out of sleep, forcing myself to stay awake despite my body screaming out in exhaustion. I couldn't even remember the last time I had slept properly with all this chaos going on. The woman I had captured was sitting across from me still passed out and I was impatiently waiting for her to wake up.

Hans had given us a room that looked like a cell. It was dark in here except for one light and the concrete walls made the place seem cold and dangerous. Dimitri entered the room causing me to straighten up from slouching against the wall and he spared a glance at the woman before walking over to me.

"She's still out?"

"It's only been ten minutes, she'll wake up soon."

He stared at me closely. "You should go back to our room and get some rest, I can watch over her."

I shook my head weakly. "No, I need to be here when she wakes up."

"Roza you can barely stand, I'll call you as soon as she's awake."

"I said I'm staying Dimitri," I snapped.

He didn't flinch at my tone instead he looked at me with concern.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "You're right I am tired and this mission is doing my head in."

"It's okay, if you're not going to go back to our room to sleep then at least rest here and I'll let you know when she wakes up."

Giving in, we both sat on the cold ground near the door. Even though she was handcuffed, we weren't taking any chances. I rested my head on his shoulder and let sleep take over me, finally allowing myself to take pleasure in the blissful state. My body was completely relaxed but my mind wasn't.

When I opened my eyes, I wasn't in the dull room with Dimitri anymore. I tried to look around to see where I was but instead all I could see was a silk sheet covering my entire body. Moving my arms I pulled at the material attempting to lift it off me, except it didn't work.

Without warning the silk sheet tightened over my entire body and I gasped for air as it stretched over my face making it even more difficult to breath.I panicked wanting to scream for help but my lungs were choked up and no matter how hard I clawed at the material it wasn't working. Dark spots flashed in front of my eyes and I felt like my head was going to explode.

 _This isn't real. This isn't real._

"Rose."

I heard the sound of my name and stared around wildly hoping that someone had come to help me but there was nothing there, all I could see was the silk sheet and the same dark spots that were becoming bigger and bigger.

"Rose, wake up."

 _I'm trying._

"Rose."

All I wanted to do was scream. I wanted to get out of here yet I didn't know how to, being suffocated was making it harder.

"Roza."

Dimitri. It was Dimitri's voice. His voice sounded so far away and I remembered that this wasn't real. I was dreaming and this was a nightmare.

 _Wake up Rose._

I recalled the time when my mother had coached me out of the dark coma that I was in a few weeks ago and used the same strategy to return back to reality. Getting out of this situation made the last one seem like a piece of cake but I put everything into pushing my way through. The material pressed down on me the more I flung my arms and legs so I stopped moving altogether and focused on returning to the room. My eyes shot open and I scrambled to my feet looking around, struggling to find my bearings.

"Roza, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

Blinking several times, I focused on the tall figure in front me and waited until my vision cleared. Dimitri was standing in front of me, keeping his distance with his hands held out. I breathed shakily absentmindedly brushing my fingers across my throat relieved that I could breathe again.

"I'm fine, it was a bad dream."

He didn't look convinced and shot me a look that said _later_ , I was going to avoid that conversation as long as possible. Looking away from his intense gaze, I turned to see the woman mumbling softly and her eyes slowly fluttering open.

My body was weak and I was feeling exhausted-mentally and physically-however, that wasn't going to stop me from getting answers. I strode over to her and placed my hand under her chin to tilt her head back so that our eyes met. It took her a few minutes before she realised what was going on and that she was in danger. She struggled against the handcuffs and went to move her head away but I held on tighter not giving her a way out.

"Easy there," I murmured. "You could break your jaw."

She growled at me and clenched her teeth, her eyes piercing into mine. To anyone else she would have looked threatening and she kind of did but she didn't know what I was capable of. I stared right into her eyes and watched as her body stopped moving and her lips parted as her eyes glazed over.

"What's your name?"

"Nancy Stewart."

"Are you a part of the Dark Knights?"

"Yes."

"Who else is a part of the group?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? You're a part of the group, tell me the names of the others."

"I can't, I don't know them."

Anger spread throughout my body. I was in no mood to re-live the whole ' _I don't know_ ' bullshit that I had to go through with Meredith.

"How many of you are there?" I asked, hoping that taking the questions in a different direction would lead to more answers.

"Twenty-one. Eleven moroi and ten guardians."

I could sense Dimitri approaching us and came to a standstill near me. "We were right, moroi and dhampir's are working together."

"Who killed Tatiana?"

"I don't know them."

Strengthening my grip on her chin, I kept spitting out questions. "What can you tell us?"

"Each moroi represents one of the royal families, they are the leaders in the revolution."

"What revolution?" I asked, an uneasy feeling settling in my stomach.

"For moroi to join alongside dhampir's and instead of sitting around waiting for strigoi to pick us off one by one, we would all go out and hunt them down."

I almost let my grip loosen and without even looking at Dimitri, I knew he was just as surprised as I was. There were several people with a similar mind-set, yes they were the minority but it wasn't anything new. But to kill people in order to launch this revolution was a far stretch.

"Why kill Tatiana? Why kill everyone else? How does this help you in anyway?"

"Tatiana was in the way," she said, her voice remaining monotonous. "The others were standing by her side in her choice that went against our beliefs. They had to go."

The way she spoke so calmly about killing people struck a nerve in me and made me feel uncomfortable. It was as if we were discussing the weather. We were close, we were so close to getting more answers and by now my head was throbbing, my legs were shaking and I felt my body begin to weaken. Ignoring it I lowered my face near hers until we were only a few inches a part.

"Tell me their names. Where do I find them?"

"I don't know."

That was my undoing. The feeling that shot through my body was similar to what I use to feel when I still had the darkness in me.

"Tell me!" I roared. "Tell me their names!"

Nancy whimpered quietly and I could barely hear it over the sound of my heart thumping in my chest and my head pounding.

"Roza, maybe we should-"

"If you don't tell me what I want to hear, so help me god I will rip your throat out," I spoke menacingly. "Tell. me."

Tears sprung in her eyes and for the first time she genuinely looked scared. She was scared of me. My compulsion was in full force now but the problem was that I couldn't force someone to tell me something that they didn't know. That didn't make me break the compulsion even though my body was slowly starting to give way. Suddenly, I was ripped away from her and felt a pair of strong arms wrap around my waist.

"Let go of me!"

"No," Dimitri shot back. "I don't know what's going on Rose but you need to calm down."

My body slacked against him and I gave up. Breaking off the compulsion, I took a moment to take in what had happened through my clouded mind. Nancy's body was shaking vigorously, something that I had failed to notice while I was compelling her and she hung her head, her hair forming a curtain around her face. My body was also shaking but not nearly as much as hers and I felt something wet on my face. Slowly, I lifted my hand to my face and when I pulled my hand back I could see blood. My nose was bleeding and I could now taste it in my mouth. My eyelids felt heavy, there was no energy left in my body and I passed out.

* * *

I felt a sense of déjà vu when I woke up, taking me back to the time when I woke up from my coma. The bright lights were irritating, I had no idea what was going on and I felt like shit. I didn't even have to look to know that Dimitri was sitting in a chair by the bed reading one of his western novels. The smell of his aftershave was all the confirmation that I needed.

"Hey comrade," I croaked.

I could hear him move and I let my head fall to the right to look at him. "How long have I been out this time?"

He brushed a few strands away from my face and his warm brown eyes held so much worry. It tugged at my heart to see him troubled by me.

"A few hours, you're in the infirmary. The nurse said that you passed out from exhaustion but I know that isn't the real reason."

So much for avoiding _that_ conversation. "I don't what happened."

"You lost control," he started. "It was like when you lost control when the darkness used to take over but it was different this time. Something was off. Nancy practically had a mental breakdown after the compulsion you put her under and your body was shaking, your breathing was heavy and your nose started bleeding."

I turned away from him, not being able to meet his eyes. He tilted my head back to him and lightly stroked my cheek.

"What did you dream about? And don't say it was nothing."

Avoiding the question was my first instinct but I had learned that it was better to tell Dimitri because he wasn't going to stop.

"I was lying on the ground with a sheet covering my body and it was suffocating me. I couldn't scream or get it off and the more I tried to pull at it, the tighter it wrapped around me. It felt like I was dying and then I woke up."

"Do you think it was just a nightmare or is there more to it?" he asked gently.

I shook my head. "It had to have been just a nightmare."

"What happened with Nancy then? You were fine at first, then something snapped inside of you."

Placing my hand over Dimitri's, I said," I lost control. I just don't know how or why."

He sighed heavily. "We should have paid more attention to your abilities and the effects of the stake. It did something more to you Roza, something that we haven't noticed yet."

I laughed humourlessly. "Like what? Like maybe I'm slowly dying?"

Dimitri didn't look amused. "Don't say that. Maybe have Sydney look into it, she might have a few ideas."

Motioning him to help me sit up, my thoughts went to Nancy. "There was something that Nancy said. She mentioned the others were with Tatiana at her side with her plans. We talked about how there were people who must have been supporting her arrangements for _Templa._ There has to be a list of names somewhere because those people are on this group's list of people to kill."

"We need to get ahead of them so we know who to protect," he added. "She told us that each of the eleven moroi represented the royal families."

"There are twelve families and only eleven moroi. Does that mean each of them are a royal moroi?" I questioned.

"Maybe. Why only eleven though?"

It was a good question and it didn't take long for me to figure it out. "Lissa, she's the only one left of her family."

Dimitri straightened up and the concern that we had for her safety was too obvious to ignore. "She might not be on that list but she is a target."

"You need to tell the others, I want her protected 24/7," I demanded. "You have to stay by her side."

"She'll be okay," he reassured me. "None of us will let anything happen to her and I'll make sure to let Petar and his group know."

My mind was racing through all of this new information and as much as I wanted to stay here and help with the assignment, there was a growing problem that had gone too far for me to neglect. I laced my fingers through Dimitri's and kissed him for a moment. He didn't hesitate in responding and the feel of his soft lips on mine was the best feeling I had experienced in a little while. I needed it. Pulling away, I leaned my forehead against his.

"There's something that I need to do, I have to leave for a few days and while I'm away you have to promise me that you'll look after Lissa and that everyone else will work on getting that list."

He seemed taken aback. "Where are you going?"

"I need to see Avery Lazar."

 **AN: Thank you so much for reading and thank you to everyone who sent me suggestions! I'll try and update as soon as I can. Have a good day/night! Much Love xoxo**


End file.
